The Bat Who Fell From The Sky
by ProseEdda
Summary: Bruce Wayne is mysteriously pulled into another universe-but to what purpose?
1. Chapter 1

*AUTHORIAL DISCLAIMER*: I do not own, did not create, and have never been paid to write about (including for this story) Tony Stark/Iron Man or Bruce Wayne/Batman, or any other trademarked/copyrighted characters that appear here. Also, don't bother suing me, I'm broke. And unemployed. And did I mention broke?

Some small bits I pulled from non-movieverse sources; in other parts, characters minor to this story may behave in somewhat unfamiliar ways to suit my idea of the story (or I may have just taken an educated guess at how they'd behave in these situations). No fictional characters were permanently harmed in the making of this fanfic. Except that one guy.

**THE BAT WHO FELL FROM THE SKY**

**1.**

**The Imperfect Storm**

The anomaly happened in the air somewhere past the Rockies.

Ahead of Bruce was a woman dressed in red, her auburn-brown hair tucked up in a glossy coil, topped by a pillbox hat with a stiff red fishnet veil. He had her pegged for an eccentric European.

_Thudthudthud_in the small of his back, the spoiled young scion of an East Coast family marking time on the back of his chair, the young nanny watching him too exhausted to make him behave. First class seating did muffle the tattoo of small energetic feet a little, thankfully.

Next to him sat a florid, beefy man in a determinedly tacky suit and fez. The fez had a propeller on top and a dent in the side where it had fallen and been squashed by its hapless owner, already on his fifth Harvey Wallbanger. The man's suit sported a pin that appeared to be Masonic in origin.

He'd never taken public transportation outside of Gotham (and in it, only cabs) before and was frankly regretting it, but by a series of cataclysmic foul-ups his fleet of private jets were all in the repair bay or being retooled, and Lucius had the Wayne corporate jet for a trip to Montreal. So here he was, shuttled across the continent by Amerilines' finest.

"Think of it as fuel conservation, sir," said Alfred cheerfully as he packed. "Doing your bit for the war and all that."

"I hate doing business out of town," he grumbled, prowling angrily around his room. "Why can't someone else go?"

"Because no one else has the Wayne charm," replied Alfred placidly. "Someone's got to winkle the money out of investors, or how are you going to pay for all those fancy toys? What's the new one, a motorcycle with a built-in gun?"

"I have to travel without the suit," he continued, clenching his fists. "No weapons, either. No anything."

"You mean you'll have to go a whole day and a half without dressing up like a bat?" asked Alfred in mock horror. "Behave like a normal human being? Saints preserve us! It's a wonder you'll survive. Who's the lucky chap meeting you, anyway?"

"Tommy Smith. He's got a finger in a lot of pies, and a lot of cash to show for it. He'll invest if I laugh at his jokes and drop hints about upcoming ventures, most likely. The usual." Then he sat down, counted to ten, and ate his breakfast, watching Alfred.

Now he sipped mineral water, breathing recycled air and wishing for it all to be over. Gotham was quiet for the moment, but he didn't like to be away. He closed his eyes to rest. Bad things happened in his half-doze, people shot, stabbed, crying our for help, nothing between them and harm. While he sat here sleeping his rich man's sleep on a plane-

He started forward. Smell of ozone. He looked out the window.

The sky was warped up ahead. They were flying into a storm. Weird green lightning played in the clouds.

"Aren't they going to pull up?" he asked aloud.

"Pull up what?" asked the man next to him, breath reeking.

"Above the storm," Bruce answered. "Fly above the storm we're about to hit." _That's about to hit us, more like._

The man leaned across him, plastering one red cheek against the window. "Nozznot."

"What?"

"I _said_, 'No, there's not.' A storm, that is," he answered. "_You_, my friend, need to lay off the sauce." He pointed one finger at Bruce like the barrel of a gun, made a bang-bang gesture, and managed one boozy wink before passing out. His fez tumbled off and landed in the aisle.

Bruce stared at his seatmate. Something was wrong with him, beyond the drunkenness and the bad outfit. It took him a minute to work out that it was the light.

The man was bathed in rich, golden late-morning sunlight. So, when he looked, were the passengers across the aisle. Everyone in his field of vision basked in the same glow.

Outside the window, dark clouds roiled closer. The sun hid behind them. The light was grey murk.

And then. His own hands were muted, his rich suit dull. The light they partook of spoke of rain and turbulence. He rested his hand on his seatmate's arm. The shadow of Bruce's fingers lay across the other man's light, but that same light did not grace himself, and no stormlight crept over to his seatmate.

"Is something wrong, sir?"

The flight attendant shone, her dark blue uniform hinting at undertones of aquamarine, her alabaster complexion now coppery. The dull ash-blonde of her hair became honeyed, luscious. He wanted to stroke it, for comfort. An unpleasant picture struggled to form in his head. It centered around her hair, his seatmate's gilded slumber, the incandescent air of the cabin.

Outside the window, a flicker of that eldritch lightning. His heart pounded. He realized it had been, for some time.

"Sir?"

The word was crisp, but her facial expression's shift to concern, her gestures, his fellow passengers' movements, all took on a slow, underwater grace, slow motions through some dense medium-

"I'm fine, thanks," he smiled. "Just tired." The Wayne charm. Time fluttered in and out between his words. Her expression relaxed slowly into a smile, the entropy of relief. She turned away now, walking as if through syrup.

Another flash of lightning, licking close to the windows, sizzling. His skin took on a poisonous tint in that instant, and he stifled a shout. Everyone else remained the same brilliant California-bound hue.

He knew there would be no help coming.

-_walking through syrup_-

Clouds churning like spoiled milk. The flight attendant turned quizzically back to him, still shining.

Outside, the air boiling.

-_like shining syrup_-

Flying into a hungry maw, that's what it was like, it was like-

-_amber that's it they're like insects trapped in amber oh jesus what's happening WHAT'S HAPPENING_-

Just then, the red woman in front of him turned around and peeped at him over her seat like a little kid. Her skin was bleached, her clothes a dull blood color. Viridian light rolled over him and there was something, looking at her he almost had it and she looked at him with a kind of triumphant pity and what was it-

-_she's moving as fast as me she's_-

A loud crack and he couldn't help it anymore, he cried out-

-and the sky split open.


	2. Chapter 2

**2.**

**The Swinging Life**

Inside the limo, Tony was getting impatient, but the scotch helped. So did the blonde and the brunette. They exchanged pleasantries and then other, more tangible things. He gave them turns, democratically. A gentleman in his way.

A pleasantly frantic interval later, he glanced at his watch. Almost time. He straightened up, tucked various things into place. Jesus but you couldn't beat a good English suit. Rumple the hell out of it and it still looked great. The girls were a different story.

"OK, ladies, playtime's over for now." He poured another drink, gave them a little champagne. "On your best behavior or I spank you. Mary, that is not an incentive."

"Magda."

"Exactly. Jennifer, please cover those up."

"Julie."

"That's my point." He flipped open his cell phone and dialed. "Hogan, you seen him yet?"

"Hey, boss. His flight's been delayed about fifteen minutes. You don't have to wipe off the lipstick stains just yet. I'll buzz you when he's here. Skycaps not bugging you about being parked there, are they?"

"Tipped 'em to leave us alone. What's this guy's name again?"

"Hashimoto. From New York. Pepper says you're trying to sell him some medical tech, remember?"

"American Japanese or Japanese Japanese?"

"He grew up in Brooklyn. But Pepper called about a minute ago and said there's an excellent chance we'll be meeting his personal assistant instead, who still has full power to make decisions in his place."

"That's doable. Thanks." He flipped his cell shut again. "Ladies, we appear to have some more free time. Who wants to be the first to try out Stark Industries' latest in personal massage technology?"


	3. Chapter 3

**3.**

**Just This Side Of OK**

He stopped in at a courtesy desk after a lengthy search. "Has a driver checked in for Bruce Wayne?"

The attendant, young and tan and Hollywood fabulous, looked through a memo book and peered at a computer terminal, tapping away. "No sir, but I can use the overhead page if you like."

"No," he said, suddenly embarrassed, "I'm probably early. I'll come back if I need you." He paced quickly back to the gate. Nobody was waiting.

He thought of his last brush with public transport: the prison bus in China. Hard, cold air, steaming puffs of breath, the stench of body odor, tension of too many men packed into a small space. Somehow these thoughts were comforting now. At least back then there was no mask of politeness, no cowardly uncertainty.

Some indistinct time after what he gingerly thought of as The Event, he had come back to himself. Woken up, except that wasn't entirely it. The sky was sunny and they were banking for the final descent to LAX. With a start, he looked at his hands. They had the same warm, golden cast as everyone else's.

When he turned to smile at his seatmate, perhaps wake him up from a drunken stupor, he found himself looking down at an elegant Asian grandmother in watered silk, serenely packing away photos of her grandchildren. She patted his hand and asked if he'd been having nightmares, what with the muttering in his sleep. He said he didn't think so. The lone flight attendant nodded in passing, stunningly beautiful, her hair relaxed and pulled back in a bun, her dark skin a striking contrast to the white of her collar and cuffs.

He got off the plane last, quietly.

The monitors overhead displayed departure and arrival times and cities in an endless loop next to the news channels. NEW YORK CHICAGO MIAMI PITTSBURGH PHILADELPHIA SAN FRANCISCO D.C. ST. LOUIS DENVER SEATTLE KANSAS CITY VANCOUVER blinked at him, off and on. Looking at them made him feel bone-weary for no reason he could name.

Someone had discarded a copy of the _New York Times_ in the next seat. He picked it up and paged through it.

NEW YORK CHICAGO MIAMI.

In international news, radical insurgents bombed a small Afghani village thought to harbor a dissenting, more moderate faction. The French government passed stricter laws about the regulation of winemaking.

PITTSBURGH PHILADELPHIA SAN FRANCISCO.

In the national news, a famed Chicago restaurant was on the rise again after a long, slow decline due to cannily hiring a new, edgy young chef. Scientists expected new breakthroughs in repulsor technology.

(He frowned: repulsor?)

D.C. ST. LOUIS DENVER.

The crossword was missing. His horoscope told him today was a bad day for travel but a good day to catch up on overdue projects.

SEATTLE KANSAS CITY VANCOUVER.

He felt like a man losing a great battle by tiny degrees. Something was slipping away from him. By God, he'd go book a flight straight back to Gotham and sent Lucius to do the job next we-

NEW YORK CHICAGO MIAMI. Again.

He waited. He wanted to get up and go to a ticket counter, but had to prove something to himself. He longed for darkness and the night air and a cowl, the logistics of a city grid and the known quantities of crime. He longed for solvable problems to erase the lurch in his midsection.

PITTSBURGH PHILADELPHIA SAN FRANCISCO.

The cities cycled through twice. He laughed, low and casual, and for a frightening couple of minutes couldn't stop. "Gotham?" he asked out loud. "Metropolis?" Nobody heard, or answered.

The newspaper kiosk a few yards away would be a good first stop; maybe an energy bar and a copy of the _Gotham Gazette_ (or better yet, _The Daily Planet_: superior crossword) would square him away, but the thought of walking over and asking for either one sent him from unease to the verge of panic. (Green lightning flickered at the edge of his mind.) Why, exactly?

Because they won't have it, he thought. Either one. They won't know what I'm talking about. Gotham doesn't-Gotham doesn't-

He rose and with animal instinct made a headlong dash for the men's room. He wasn't sure if he'd make it, or even if he was about to throw up or go unconscious. Faces swarmed around him, unheeding, unknowing. Then he almost ran into one of them.

"I'm sorry, sir. I believe I was looking for you. My name's Hogan. I think there was a mixup. I can't apologize enough." The driver was slightly barrel-chested, deferential in a laid-back way, pleasantly normal. They shook hands briefly. The contact made him feel the ground grow solid beneath his feet again. A mixup. Bad things happened, and then were fixed. He smiled, almost ashamed at the depth of his gratitude.

"I understand," he said. "Just to be sure, my luggage-?"

"Already handled, sir. If you'll just come this way..."

The trip from gate to front door was uneventful. Everything was modern in that particular California style, that spoke of not only the cutting-edge now but also an optimistic future, freed from the East Coast's constant pounding reminder of the past and its traditions. He made a mental note to buy a vacation property out here, even as he knew he'd never use it.

The limo awaited him, splendid and gleaming. Ah, the way of money and its many channels, the shared language of the wealthy and enterprising. Sometimes he found it loathsome, but now it was water to a parched tongue. Get some real business done, feel like himself again.

Two girls were the first things he saw. Better yet, a chance to act out the playboy role. He could do this. Then he saw his real target.

West Coast ease in his frame, slightly overtanned skin, impeccable clothes. Shades that probably cost as much as the rest of the outfit, dark hair slicked back. The smoky smell of scotch, which suddenly he wanted one of, despite not having anything stronger than weak champagne in years. Subtle cologne. He felt like an absurdly stiff boarding-school headmaster with a stick up his ass next to this guy, all pallor and outmoded etiquette.

But such things, he knew, could be used to his advantage, insecurity running both ways. Not that Smith showed it much. He looked about as calm as a person could. Bruce smiled and climbed in.


	4. Chapter 4

**4.**

**Suddenly Tony's Day Wasn't So Great Anymore**

Tony lounged back and flashed his big white dazzling toothy smile, welcoming Hashimoto's assistant in like a sultan _en seraglio_ greeting a foreign potentate. The poor guy looked pale as milk and stuffy with his own importance. Right. Sitting him next to Tony was like setting a sixteen-course Victorian dinner next to fresh sushi with a shot of hot sake. The girls picked up on his vibe and giggled a little. Julie-was it Julie?-scooted a little closer to the assistant and her blonde fleshly abundance pled sweetly with the severe lines of his suit.

Then the assistant smiled and shook his hand. He had a grip that was genuinely frightening, and teeth that belonged to a nocturnal predator-even, pearly, and ready to tear flesh. Tony shifted minutely in his seat. This would be a difficult sell, he saw now. No bleeding-heart appeals to the guy's better nature; stories of the people who'd saved by Stark Industries' advanced life-saving devices wouldn't move him. Profit or nothing would keep this guy happy.

"Tommy," said the assistant, nodding on the final shake. Tony stared levelly at him for an extra beat. He couldn't tell if the guy was being a prick or if he was just too lousy at his job to keep a client's name straight. "Tony, actually," he informed Hashimoto's flunky coolly.

"Tony!" the assistant corrected himself, chagrined. "I'm Bruce. Terribly sorry, I'dve sworn my staff said your name was Tommy. Is it-Smith?"

Oh Jesus Christ, the assistant had his own staff and even _they_ couldn't get it right.  
>"Tony Stark. I guess I'm not as well-known as I thought. Maybe I should spend more time out of the suit." The girls laughed on cue and so did Bruce, although he didn't completely appear to get the joke.<p>

Bruce apologized again and Tony smoothed it over with the offer of a scotch. They spent a few minutes making small talk about nothing in particular, circling each other verbally, and then Jarvis pinged him on the car's homelink system. "Sir, as requested by Miss Potts, I've been tracking the day's activities. Your liaison with Mr. Hashimoto appears to have hit a snag. Shall I have her reschedule the appointment?"

"We already have Mr. Hashimoto's assistant, thanks Jarvis." Tony reached for a vodka this time. Mix it up a little.

"According to Miss Potts, that's not the case."

Tony frowned. "Can you put her on, please?"

"She's indisposed just this moment, sir. Shall I have her call you back straightaway?"

"What, is something wrong?"

Jarvis hesitated slightly, and said in a voice that mimicked embarrassment rather well for an AI, "I'm afraid she's just in the loo right now."

Tony considered this. "I don't guess you'd patch me through with a visual?"

"Your sense of humor is one of your most admirable traits, sir," said Jarvis. "But-ah, Miss Potts is back." There was soft click and Pepper came on. Tony waved the girls to silence, still clutching each other and giggling. "Pepper? What's up?"

"I just got a call from Hashimoto's assistant a few minutes ago. I tried to call you then, but your cell was off and I know how you hate to be bugged when you're...in the limo."

"Don't worry, I already picked him up. We're on our way."

"Him?" asked Pepper. "Mr. Hashimoto's assistant is a woman, and she called to say her flight got delayed at O'Hare. We'll have to reschedule the meeting; she's got business in London tomorrow and the next two weeks on the continent." She paused. "Is everything alright?"

He glanced at Bruce, who seemed-guilty wasn't the exact word, or sheepish, but something like that. "No. No, everything's fine. I'll see you when we get there." He cut the connection and gave Bruce his full attention. "Ah," he said. _Ball's in your court, buddy. Care to explain?_

"I-" Bruce managed. "It appears we have our wires crossed. I...thought you were a potential investor in the Wayne Corporation's science division."

"Well, that's pretty funny," said Tony, "because I was looking to make a sale from Stark Industries' medical tech division. Right floor, wrong apartment, I guess." He swirled his glass, let the ice cubes clink. "I expected you to be a Japanese business man, and you expected me to be...Tommy Smith." He waited a while longer for Bruce to say something, then busied himself freshening up the other man's drink. "So, can we drop you back at the airport? Need to make a call? This Smith guy must be pretty wild to find you by now."

"Actually by now I expect he's called the homebase and gotten rescheduled. And any number of board members are throwing a fit, but it'll pass. I think I'll just pick up a ticket and head straight back to Gotham."

"Noplace like the Big Apple," said Tony warmly. Thank God he'd finally get this stick in the mud off his hands. "I've been to Times Square before the entertainment industry turned it into a theme park. Those were the days."

"Well," said Bruce, crossing his legs and relaxing a little, "I can get a direct flight to Gotham, so I don't have to stop in New York, unless there's a last-minute change." He kept smiling and took another sip of his drink.

Tony raised an eyebrow and threw a half-smile at Bruce. "You're a funny guy, you know that?"

Bruce kept smiling, but uncertainly now. "Beg pardon?"

Tony cocked his head warily to one side. "Gotham _is_ New York. Another nickname for it, like 'the Big Apple' or 'Metropolis'. You know." He stared at Bruce over the rim of his tumbler.

Bruce went from uncertain to bewildered. "How does Metropolis come into it? And since when is Gotham a nickname for anything? It's a separate city."

"What, you mean like TriBeCa? That's just a neighborhood."

Bruce coiled slowly away and into the side of the car. His face carried that same guilt and sheepishness mixed with something close to terror. The look, he realized, of someone who's just lost control of his bladder in public. "Gotham is a separate city. It's _miles_ from New York." He never took his eyes off of Tony.

The girls ducked their heads and drank champagne quietly, flicking glances at each man in turn.

Tony got it. The guy was a lunatic. Probably a really rich one to judge by the suit, an overbred prince of the mid-Atlantic region who got away from his handlers. Either that or this was some extremely weird performance art. (How much per show? Could he get Pepper to arrange it again?)

"Sure. Well, first let's drop off the girls," he said soothingly. He himself didn't mind crazy people—he'd always liked eccentrics, and after you built a flying suit and killed your business partner on the roof of your own company, you lost the right to point fingers where crazy was concerned-but if Bruce turned out to be violent, he didn't want any casualties. He tapped on the intercom to the driver's seat. "Hogan, quick side trip to Rodeo, OK?"

They traveled in silence. Bruce stared at him, confused but biding his time. The girls looked stricken, but when the limo pulled up in front of the poshest shops in town, he patted each of them on the knee, gave them a big roll of cash, and told them to go have fun. With one last hesitant glance back at Bruce, they kissed him and went.

Once they were safely out of harm's way, he turned to Bruce and said, "I never caught your last name."

"Wayne," said Bruce, and clearly wished he'd kept it to himself.

"Mmm hmm," says Tony. "Bruce Wayne. You're what, six-seven or so? Black hair, blue eyes?" He'd quietly flicked the homelink on again; Jarvis was listening. "Is anyone maybe looking for you, Bruce Wayne?"

"Nobody except my butler," he said, biting the words off sharply. "Why?"

"Tell me a little more about Gotham," said Tony. Giving Jarvis time to search the news databases for anything likely. Escaped convict, escaped mental patient, crazy artistic type.

"I know what you're doing," said Bruce. "I'm not dangerous. I'm _not_ crazy. I was born in Gotham city. My parents were Thomas and Martha Wayne. They-died when I was a boy. The family butler was named my legal guardian. Alfred Pennyworth. He's English. I attended Princeton. I'm the CEO of the Wayne Corporation." He built up a head of steam, trying to hammer a solid reality with his words. Behind his eyes things kept slipping off the track. Schizophrenia meeting logic.

"OK," said Tony reasonably. "OK, you know who you are. But Gotham's not a separate city." He held up his hands. "But we can play it that way, that's fine. You-"

"_It IS a separate city!_" Bruce said, almost yelling. The controlled hysteria in his voice was somehow much worse than plain psychosis. "New York doesn't have Gotham University! New York doesn't have the monorail system! New York doesn't have Arkham Asyl-" He stopped, pivoted away.

"That's it," he said. "That's what all this is." He put his head in his hands. "So what's the key? That depends on who did it. The Joker couldn't stage anything this elaborate. He never leaves Gotham limits. It could be a chemically-induced hallucination. No. Poison Ivy's potions always leave a bitter taste in your throat."

Tony watched this with interest. He was tempted to hire the guy as a performer anyway. Be a hell of a lot better than pictures of fruit. Do a live installation, build a cocktail party around it.

Jarvis came back online. "Nothing, sir. Anyone with that name is either too young, too old, already accounted for, or the wrong ethnicity. I included all of North America in the search. Would you like me to include other parts of the world?"

"Nah," said Tony, crunching ice. "We're pretty close to home as it is. We'll be fine." He closed the connection again.

Bruce continued, ignoring him. "The Riddler would leave clues. Not him. The Scarecrow...the Scarecrow only does phobias." He paused, then sat bolt upright. "_Mind-control._ The Mad Hatter. That's the only thing that makes sense. He planted some kind of device on me. Maybe the guy in the fez works for him. Yes. Yeah." He combed frantically through is hair. "It'd have to be near my brain. That's how it was last time." His motions grew increasingly frantic, his razor-neat haircut disheveled by his efforts. "But Jesus, _where is it_-?"

He stopped. "Of course. I can't feel it because I'm in the hallucination. I have to break out of it." He cast wildly about and saw the bulletproof partition between the limo's back compartment and the driver's seat. It was also soundproof, so nobody but Tony heard it when Bruce reared back suddenly and drove himself headfirst into the glass with a sharp crack. He dropped like a shot to the floor, limp as a dead fish.

Tony regarded him for a while, sucking on a shard of ice. Finally he tapped the intercom. "Hey, Hogan."

"Boss?"

"One last errand before we go home, OK? Swing by the nearest liquor store you can pull up on the GPS. It's gonna take a lot of scotch to get me through the rest of today."


	5. Chapter 5

**5.**

**The Perfect Host**

He almost had Bruce wrestled into place on one of the guest beds, with Hogan and Pepper helping-Christ, the guy was a ton of pure muscle-when his cell chirped at him, Rhodey's ringtone. He gave Bruce a final shove (Pepper shot a sharp look at him) and answered. "Playtpus! You need me to get you a date tonight, is that it?"

"If that means your buddies in S.H.I.E.L.D., they've already been here," said Rhodey. "Asking me a lot of questions. I bet they'll be calling you pretty soon, if they don't just drop by for lunch and an interrogation. You out in the suit today? That seemed to be the big topic."

"Me? No, I'm doing business today." His ersatz investor gave a small moan.

"Business, huh? What's her name? I interrupting anything? That sounded like-"

"Never mind. I've been on the ground all day. Pepper and Hogan can vouch for me. Plus...uh, Mutt and Jeff. They're shopping on Rodeo even as we speak."

"Mutt and Jeff. Uh huh. I don't think that's going to be good enough. Your special friend Fury came in. I don't scare easy, but that son of a bitch had me sweating, wanting to know if you'd been up, where, when, did I have anything to do with it, and did I have any special information in general from any pilots."

Tony sat down on the bed, shooed his helpers out. "Yeah?"

"That's not all, either. I've got a couple of pals in the FAA, old buddies from college. They said that S.H.I.E.L.D. came in there, too. Asking for reports of anything unusual, particularly in the western sky traffic areas, but wouldn't say what they meant. Like playing blind poker, you tell me but I don't tell you. Then I hear Ameristar Airlines is under some kind of secret investigation. I don't know what about, either, and it's a damn rare day when _I_ don't get to hear the details on something like that. I got a couple more friends working for them, too, but they're not answering their phones. Well, except for one, and he's tight as a clam about it. Scared, maybe. Or maybe somebody's in the office with him. And all of this leads back to Fury, and he ain't talking. So I'd think long and hard about my day if I were you, OK?"

"Jesus." Tony looked at Bruce, who had only the tiniest bruise on his forehead. His breathing was deep and regular. Tony suddenly envied him. "I'm not kidding, Rhodey, I've been on the ground all day, trying to do business."

"You can back that up? Your 'business' connection can back that up?"

_Sure, once he stops being crazy._ The day suddenly took on a much darker cast. "Yeah, no problem. Hey, listen, Rhodey, I gotta go, OK? Lunch meeting and all that. I'll call you."

"Take care of yourself, Tony," said Rhodey, and rang off. It was that lilt of brotherly concern in his voice that made Tony feel better and worse at the same time.

He poked Bruce in the ankle once. No response. "Hey, Jarvis?"

"Yes sir?"

"You monitoring the limo when Captain Courageous here took a swandive into the partition?"

"Yes, sir. Recall that you had sensors and memory playback installed in the subsurface of the glass only last year. I believe it helped you recall the feminine charms of a certain starlet in minute detail, the better to purchase her the Parisian lingerie set you had Miss Potts send her as a Christmas gift." Jarvis paused, his version of a polite cough. "I'm sure I don't know how said charms got plastered up against the glass to start with, however."

"Right. Judging from the weight and height measurements I gave you at the liquor store, was the impact enough to cause him any head trauma?"

"By my calculations, no, but I'm not a doctor, sir. I really recommend you take him to a hospital for further evaluation."

"Mmm." He stood up. "I've still got a cardiac monitor in the workshop from the time I had Pepper change out the Mark II. I think we'll just bring it up and plug him in while I take care of some business in the meantime."

"Sir, I _really_ must insist-"

"I know, Jarvis. Consider your duty done."

The trip to and from the workshop only took a few minutes. He stripped Bruce to the waist, stuck the electrodes to his skin, and hooked him up to the house system. Recalling some old lifesaving classes he'd taken, he checked his ward's pupils. Evenly-sized, nothing unusual. Breath good, color good, and he couldn't remember what else to look for.

"The hell with it," he told the sleeping Bruce. "You'll be OK or you won't, and if you're as crazy as you acted in the car, we'll need more than a bump on the head to take you down." He clicked off the dimmer and left.

In the livingroom he found a sandwich and a bowl of soup Pepper had left for him. He'd better go tell her Bruce was OK and explain what happened on the way home. He bit into half of a very good pastrami on rye and looked out the floor-to-ceiling window at the surf.

In its reflection, a shadow stirred.

He whirled around, hoping to catch the intruder by surprise, but at that exact moment he swallowed the wrong way and had a brief choking fit.

His interloper regarded him with minimal pity. "Mr. Stark, you seem to have a free moment. Mind if I ask you a few questions? I believe your good friend Mr. Rhodes may have already briefed you against my wishes."

Tony recovered slightly and waved a hand at the coffee table behind him, face red and strained. "Rest your eyepatch anywhere, Nick. Sandwich?"


	6. Chapter 6

**6.**

**Can't Keep A Good Man Down**

Snow was falling, silent, endless. He walked through the old section of Gotham Cemetery, looking for his parents' graves, two red roses clutched in his fist. He knew they were close but at every turn he failed to find them. The snow ate his footprints.

He kept seeing tall columnar markers studded with small shelves that jutted out, and on each one sat a crystal tumbler full of thick, shining amber liquid. At the end of each shelf was an engraved silver plaque that said JARR, or maybe TARV or ARK.

He walked faster and faster until he was almost running, desperate to find them before the terrible creature stalking the rows could catch him. Then the avenue opened up and he found the family plot and there were his mother and father's headstones, but their their graves lay gaping and empty. He cried out and turned and the great snarling bat-thing loomed over him. He saw that the snow wasn't snow at all; it was a cascade of pearls tumbling over and over from the sky. He heard his mother's laughter through the hedge beyond the cemetery gates, and then was falling back back back into an endless asphalt pit that smelled of taxi fumes and echoed with the sound of footsteps running on cement, two smears of blood on his outstretched hand.

He sat bolt upright, breathing hard. Warm Pacific light filtered through drawn curtains; the faintest boom of surf whispered peacefully at him.

Bruce looked down at himself. He still had on his trousers and socks; his shoes lay on the floor some distance away, and the rest of his clothes were draped across a chair. The electrodes were something new. He looked at the monitor they were attached to and quietly peeled them off.

"Ah, sir, you're awake," said a disembodied voice. The one from the car; high-toned, British, nothing like Alfred's proletarian Cockney cant. "I'd inform the others, but I'm afraid I've-" the voice slurred like an old record slowing down, then recovered. "I've been partly disabled. Are you well? I believe you suffered a contusion."

"I'm fine," said Bruce automatically, realizing at that exact moment how much his head ached. His stomach was empty and his bladder full. He groaned slightly, putting his feet on the floor. "Who are you? _Where_ are you?

"You may call me Jarvis," said the voice. "I'm Mr. Stark's personal AI. As such, I'm everywhere, usually. You...know what an AI is?"

"Artificial intelligence." He stood up and found his balance, strode across the room to a door that led, thankfully, to a spacious marble bathroom.

"Yes, sir. I run the house, among other things. Pardon, but you were unconscious for two hours and sixteen minutes. I strongly suggest you lie down and wait for Mr. Stark."

Bruce unburdened his bladder, sighing in sheer animal relief. "I'm still fine, thank you." The soap smelled of almonds and cherries. The mirror over the sink unfolded like origami as he looked at his reflection in it.

"You'll find aspirin and bottled water in the medicine cabinet," said Jarvis in a directorial tone. "At the very least, please avail yourself." He cracked a bottle, swallowed pills, felt his stomach growl. As the mirror reformed into a flat plane, he looked at himself. A violet bruise bloomed across his forehead; the faintest hint of five o'clock shadow dusted his jaw. Finally, carefully, he looked at the bottled water's label and deliberately read every word, then looked away, recited it in his mind, and reread it.

It was nearly impossible for him to read in a dream; or to read the same words in the same order twice. He looked away once more, and read the label a final time. Then he looked at his reflection, calculating.

"I sincerely hope you're not about to try the same trick you did in the car," said Jarvis.

"No," said Bruce. "No, it won't work. It won't work because I'm not hallucinating. I don't know what's going on and where I am, but I'm not hallucinating. This is all really happening."

"You're presently in Malibu, in one of the guest bedrooms of Tony Stark's private mansion, if that helps," offered Jarvis. "Although from what I've managed to piece together about you, I rather imagine it doesn't."

"You're right," said Bruce. "It doesn't." He crossed back into the bedroom. "Why are you disabled? What happened?"

"Part of my being disabled at present is my inability to describe the event of its occurrence," answered Jarvis. "Rather like what a human stroke victim undergoes, as I understand the process. I am unable-" he paused. "Unable to-"

"Where's Stark?" asked Bruce, getting dressed.

"Mr. Stark is-I cannot locate him. The rooms where he might-the rooms-"

"It sounds like you were rendered unable to even recognize certain areas in the house, much less trace anyone in them. You probably can't even remember they exist. Tell me, does Mr. Stark have a living room?"

"I don't know, sir. What is a living room?"

"Mm. I was right. Who did this to you?"

"I am-this is simply how I function-who did what? Was something done to me? Wait, yes. But I don't-"

"I could tell you point blank and you wouldn't be able to process the information, which means someone is very good at hacking systems. Does Stark have a lot of enemies?" He flexed his shoulders. Something to deal with directly. He didn't have his preferred attire for such occasions, but he'd been a fighter long before he became a vigilante.

"Not that I know of, sir, but he's gotten very notorious since he built that suit."

Built _what_ suit? Intuition shivered up his spine. In the absence of fact he had a sneaking suspicion that Stark's infamous suit and his own might have something in common. Bruce filed this away for later consideration. He left his jacket and tie behind (but emptied his jacket pockets first) and stalked out into the hallway.

Despite its modernity and informality, Stark's home reeked of money. He passed at least three original works of modern art on his way through what appeared to be the main upper hallway. (It troubled him briefly; he seemed to recall at least one of them as belonging to someone he knew in Gotham. Perhaps it'd been auctioned off?) Finally a flight of broad, shallow steps led him down in a meandering fashion to the next lowest level. There was a large room that was airy but too sparsely decorated to be inviting; from beyond an open doorway on the other side he heard the indistinct murmur of voices and crept over.

"-anything about this?" said one voice, deep and commanding.

"-the millionth time, I was on the ground. I took the car to LAX-"

There was an ambient liquid sound, like a table fountain, only quieter and more pervasive, overpowering many of the words. He leaned in closer.

"-understand that leeway only goes so far? If you're caught causing this level of disturbance-"

"_What_ disturbance? I don't even know what the hell we're talking about except my habit of flying without an actual plane, and I haven't done that for the last 48 hours. I've been retooling the suit and doing regular moneygrubbing business with normal people, OK?"

"Mr. Stark-"

"Look, this is the second time you've let yourself in uninvited and conked Jarvis halfway out, just call me Tony. We'll be exchanging Christmas cards if this keeps up."

"I don't think you fully understand the gravity of the situation."

"_I_ still don't know what you're doing here, and you won't tell me, and the longer this bullshit goes on, the less inclined I am to help you. I wasn't in the air today. At all. I was in a limo with two girls and a business associate. You can ask the skycaps I bribed to leave us alone while we were parked."

"Why would the skycaps need to be bribed? Why were you so eager to be alone?"

"Technically my business associate hadn't shown up yet, so I was alone with the girls. If you can't imagine why I'd want to be alone with two girls, you really need to think about scheduling some vacation time for yourself. I know a couple of swimsuit models-"

"Alright, Mr. Stark. We're going to investigate, but I believe you. Now, mind telling me who the man upstairs is?" Bruce tensed up, waiting.

Tony faltered. "What-I mean, why?"

"I looked into the mainframe before I disabled it. There's a man in a guest bedroom hooked up to a cardiac monitor, and I damn well know this isn't a hospital. You're hiding something. Given your ambiguous place in the bigger picture-"

"Oh? And what happened to the Avenger Initiative?"

"Things are very delicate right now, and we can't afford any screwups. The current political climate isn't a forgiving one. We have to clean our messes up before anyone finds out about them." He paused. "Or throw someone to the wolves, if need be."

"You think you can threaten me?" Tony bristled. "I'm a goddamn hero as far as the press is concerned. I run a company that turns more profit in a month even after abandoning weapons manufacturing than most companies see in a year. I escaped a terrorist camp by building a flying suit. You'd better have a damn good master plan to take me down. And you've got one hell of a nerve making accusations after _you_ broke in to _my_ house."

A long, tense silence. Then the other voice spoke, precisely and finally. "Your guest is part of the problem. We're taking him into custody. For your sake, I suggest you let us do so without any fuss." Then Bruce wasn't alone anymore; a tall, lean, broad-shouldered man with polished obsidian skin, a coal-colored leather trenchcoat, and a face like a fist strode into his view.

The man's one eye barely had time to widen before Bruce was on him, taking him down and pinning him to the floor. The man performed an amazing snakelike wriggle and flipped out of his grasp like a live trout. In the process he threw Bruce ass over teakettle into the room he'd just intended to vacate, where Bruce noted Tony Stark's astonished face. Bruce maneuvered easily enough to land in a one-armed crouch. The other man's hand reached into his coat. Bruce plucked up a hefty piece of glazed, abstract pottery and hit his opponent's hand with it. He flew after his projectile and shoved the other man against the wall.

Before he could turn him face-first into it, however, the other man whirled to chop him on the right deltoid with the side of his hand, making Bruce's entire arm go numb. He rammed his knee up into the other man's gut and met the bottom end of a kevlar vest. His joint made a faint cracking noise but he was gratified to hear a grunt from Stark's interrogator. Bruce slammed his left forearm against the other man's throat, but he'd half turned away and Bruce's arm missed both windpipe and carotid. The other man slid halfway to the floor and socked Bruce in the belly on the way down. He staggered back a step and half-fell as a booted foot kicked his legs out from under him. He recovered and slipped aside as the other man launched himself at Bruce like a cat after a mouse. Bruce turned back and slammed the other man face-first into the floor and finally pinned his arms behind his back.

The other man twisted his head back around as if looking at Bruce and quickly jerked his chin down onto one of the studs attached to his collar. In the moment of silence that followed, there was a faint feminine gasp from the other end of the room and the rapid clicking sound of running feet; then the room was almost magically full of men in dark suits, wielding handguns pointed at Bruce.

It would have been over if the fight's conclusion hadn't put the combatants behind Tony instead of in front of him; they were closer to the couch and any bullets taking Bruce out would have to go through Tony.

"Let him go," said the man in front. They all had the same expression; like a closed door concealing violence. Bruce felt their surprise and fear and anger as well. Not many people could bring down the head man, it seemed. He knew exactly how hard it was. He'd done it.

"You're not taking me into custody," he said. Words he'd used before, although usually at night and with better odds. "And I want to know what's going on."

"Let him _go_," said the same man again, edging closer. His gun never wavered. "Mr. Stark, if you'll move, please."

"I'm getting really damn tired of being told what to do in my own house," said Tony. "Put the fucking guns down."

"Mr. Stark, you will move or you'll be considered a collaborator." This from the man on the floor. Bruce gave his arm an extra twist to shut him up. Like trying to bend live steel. A distant part of him admired his defeated opponent, wanted to spar with him some more.

"I don't want to see anyone innocent suffer," Bruce said. "Stark, move."

"I'm not taking orders from you, either," snapped Tony, although the edge of his voice sounded frayed. "I don't have a goddamn clue what's going on yet, and I'm not moving until I get some answers. From _both_ sides."

"This is your last chance, Mr. Stark," said the suit in the front. "I'm not aiming for you but I'm not responsible if you're in the way." He leveled the gun just half a degree more in Bruce's direction. "Mr. Fury?"

"Your call, Agent Coulson. I'd say do it right...about...n-"

A blast of pure white light sliced the room in half. Everyone on either side who could move fell back, shouting. The opposite wall smoked, a scorch mark the size of a tire gouged into it. All heads turned as one to the source.

Standing in the doorway, next to a floor-to-ceiling glass waterfall, was a young woman built like an especially leggy fawn, with a patrician face, hair escaping a neat tuck, and wide blue eyes full of terror and determination. She was in her stocking feet (the better to muffle her footsteps, thought Bruce approvingly) and a tailored blue skirt suit, but on the lower half of her raised right arm she wore a bulky red metal glove, the palm of which sported a dilated, glowing circle.

"Nobody move!" she yelled, trembling, "or I'll shoot again, I swear to God!"

Everyone froze, stunned. There was a long, bewildered pause.

"Potts," said Tony, "remind me to give you a raise."


	7. Chapter 7

**7.**

**Fury Asks The Big Questions**

It took forever for Tony to convince Fury that using the Stark private jet as opposed to the S.H.I.E.L.D. clunker was a good idea, and half as long that bringing the suit was equally well-advised. He finally clinched the argument by telling Fury, "Look, either the suit goes in the plane or I go in the suit. I don't really care right now." He left his sobriety levels out of the equation.

The other agents were dispatched back to headquarters, or to bother other people, Tony wasn't sure. After about an hour's arranging and a drive to his private airstrip, they were in the sky, headed away from the coast.

"I'll explain in a minute," said Fury when asked again. "Right now, I'd like to see your ID, Mr. Wayne." Bruce pulled out his wallet and handed over a social security card and his driver's license, added one of his credit cards after a moment's thought, then went back to his ribeye. Thank God Stark had a cook and a kitchen on board. He'd been hungry enough to agree to damn near anything before lunch was served.

(Fury had asked him, back at the house, "Where in the hell did you learn how to fight like that hand to hand?"

"I studied martial arts in China for a few years," said Bruce. He kept his face as blandly convincing as possible, knowing the real question was _How in the hell did you beat_ me _?_)

Fury pushed his plate back and studied the grim, washed-out picture on the license, checking the watermarks with a special penlight and studying the Gotham city seal with an intense interest. The social security card he scanned through a small device about the size of a cell phone-it _was_ a cell phone, Bruce realized a moment later-and looked at the tiny screen avidly for a minute or two. He did the same thing with the credit card, then handed all of them back to Bruce.

Tony watched all this but didn't slow down his lunch. Fatty tuna, freshly caught that morning and flown to his personal chef. Anyone who didn't love being rich was nuts, in his opinion. He wondered if Bruce-who didn't appear to enjoy much of anything-had a stick up his ass or was just jarred by...whatever had happened. He was betting on option one, himself.

Fury took a last bite of food and looked at Tony. "First of all, Stark, I know we debriefed your assistant, but-"

"Pepper can keep her mouth shut," said Tony. "If she couldn't, she'd never have lasted. She went to Coulson when Obadiah jumped overboard, remember? Don't worry about it. Now what's up?"

Fury drew out a series of photographs. "These are satellite pictures, taken on hi-res film at around 9:00am, Pacific Standard. Latitude and longitude put us right over Nevada. Take a look."

Tony flipped through them. In the first was a passenger plane flying through clear sky, with the Ameristar logo clearly visible. In the second there was a certain blurriness to the sky, especially to the plane's left side. In the third there appeared another plane, indistinct as though through fog, but there weren't clouds at all. In the fourth photo the second plane was clear and sharp, with a logo spelling out "Amerilines" in red and blue. The Ameristar plane, though, appeared blurry around the edges.

The fifth photo looked like a stormcloud, although weirdly tinted (perhaps it had to do with the film) and on the far edge was the outline of a wing disappearing into it. The sixth and final photo showed the Ameristar plane again, solid and visible and alone. Just at the right edge of the picture was something that might have been the peculiar cloud or perhaps an ordinary wisp of cumulus.

He looked at Fury. "I'm going to guess we're not trading witty banter over dead animal flesh a mile up so you can show me your photoshop skills. What's Amerilines? Why haven't I heard of them before?"

Bruce looked up. "Amerilines is the service I came to California on. It's one of the most popular airlines in America. I own a little stock in them, come to think of it."

Fury looked at him measuringly. "How about Ameristar?"

"Never heard of them." He paused. "Except when I was getting off the plane. The logo...had changed." He drew a calm breath. "I only half-noticed it at the time."

"Mr. Wayne, I'm looking at reports that say your social security number doesn't exist and your bank account doesn't, either. Your driver's license is basically a very realistic art-school project writ small. Generally when I see something like this, it means I'm dealing with a con artist. But someone in hiding uses the name of a real city as part of their alias. That's the first thing that's off here. The second is the pictures." He gestured for Tony to pass them over.

Bruce looked for a long time at the fourth photo and blanched at the fifth. "Mr. Wayne?"

"There was a cloud-" he started, and told them about his trip, the obnoxious drunk man who ended up as a doting Asian grandmother, the flight attendant changing from a blonde to a black woman. He mentioned the light, the way things had slowed down and sped up randomly. Fury and Stark gave him their complete attention. He tried to remember something else that seemed important, but it danced at the edge of recollection, unretrievable.

"We checked the passenger manifest," said Fury after Bruce finished. "Your seat was listed as empty. We double-checked the Ameristar databases. No standby seating was booked at the last minute. But apparently your presence didn't cause any particular alarm, so somehow you fit in. I'd be pretty certain you were snuck onboard by a crew member, but none of them turned up as security risks. And when you give me your confused look, you're not faking it. I know people, Mr. Wayne, and whatever you are, you're not lying.

"Unfortunately, that leaves us with a lot of big, open-ended questions that I can't answer, and I don't like not having answers. I especially don't like questions that involve imaginary planes appearing in American airspace and then vanishing again without a trace."

"As opposed to imaginary planes that stick around?" asked Tony. Fury glared at him until his smirk disappeared.

"One of the big open-ended questions in particular is why you picked Mr. Wayne up in the first place, Mr. Stark. The second is why you didn't drop him off somewhere when you figured out your mistake."

"I thought he was, whatsisface, Hashimoto's assistant. Guy was gonna buy some medical tech I've been working on, if I could sell him on it. Wayne here shows up right as I find out it's gonna be the assistant I'm dealing with instead. OK, fine. We chat and find out he's not anybody's assistant; he's here himself on behalf of his business to meet with a big investor, like he told you while we were waiting for lunch. Then I say, Have fun going back to New York, and he says, No, Gotham, and then it turned into a trainwreck. He thought he was hallucinating and knocked himself unconscious trying to wake up." Tony left out large chunks of Bruce's monologue, the Poison Hatter routine, or whatever it was called, although he couldn't say why.

"That's your version of question one. Question two I'm still waiting for."

"Look, Nick, I don't know what to tell you. He was crazy, I thought, but we'd already yakked about this and that before he went section eight on me. I was invested a little maybe, you know? I felt responsible for him." _Plus the liquor store was closer than the hospital,_ said a reptilian voice in the very back of his mind. "And you know what the hospitals are like around here. He'd be in the ER waiting room for three days just to get triaged."

Fury absorbed this silently. He didn't entirely believe Tony, but he found the falsehoods seemed largely benign.

"Why are we going to New York?" asked Bruce into the lull.

"To see a man loosely affiliated with a project I'm heading up-"

"The Avenger Initative," supplied Tony, looking at Bruce. "Kind of a, you could say, superhero club. Or the intent to get one going, anyway. You know what a superhero is, right?"

"Yes," said Bruce, at the same time Fury snapped, "That's still classified."

Tony shrugged. "He already heard me mention it back home when he was eavesdropping. Besides, who's he going to tell? All three of us sound certifiable, in case you weren't noticing." He tossed back a shot of sake.

"Who's this man?" asked Bruce warily.

"Dr. Stephen Strange. He lives in Greenwich Village."

"You're taking me to a psychiatrist?"

"No, Mr. Wayne," said Fury, and smiled slightly at Tony and Bruce's nonplussed looks as he continued. "I'm taking you to a sorcerer."


	8. Chapter 8

**8.**

**Strange Gets Weird**

The weird thing wasn't that the guy sitting in an armchair across from the rest of them-Fury, Tony, and Bruce, all crowded onto an overstuffed loveseat like Victorian suitors calling on the mayor's daughter-was dressed like a medieval alchemist as interpreted by the costumer for Cirque du Soleil. The weird thing was how nobody except Bruce had to really try to hide their incredulity in his presence.

Since their arrival, the military-precise Fury had been chatting with Strange like they went to the same band camp or something. Jesus, how the hell did he know? Maybe they did. Throughout the entire ordeal, he tried not to look in Strange's direction too often. That huge fake dimestore jewel the Doctor had around his neck appeared to be _winking at him_.

It bothered him that Tony, who had a hangover now, was staring sullenly at his cup and not saying a word. Back on the plane he'd been at least as put off as Bruce; and now he just sat like a bump on a log, fogged in a throbbing headache.

Bruce turned away and quietly absorbed all the eclectic, esoteric, religious artifacts covering the walls and shelves-masks, swords, prayer wheels, fetishes of every size and provenance-and decided that the only thing needed to finish the perfect picture of a well-traveled necromancer's home was a silent Asian houseboy who doubled as an assassin.

Strange interrupted himself. "Wong?" he called out. A slight, bald, Asian man walked into the room with a tray. After a brief but complicated ritual with hot water and handleless cups, he served everyone tea. His movements spoke of precise, deadly skill, held at the ready.

Bruce blinked and sipped his tea carefully. He was thankfully distracted by the elfin woman seated on a hassock next to Strange. She looked kind of like Edie Sedgwick, if the latter's hair had been longer and white instead of gray.

Things got more alarming when Strange, who had been nodding at Bruce every so often, finally turned to him with a wide smile and said, "I'm so pleased to finally meet you, Mr. Wayne. I've been admiring you for some time now." Then, as Bruce reeled from this sally, the Doctor turned to the woman beside him. "Clea, could you go see if-?" She kissed Strange's cheek briefly and slipped away for parts unknown. He looked at his guests again, replacing his smile with a solemn expression. His sense of triumph was harder to mask.

Fury looked sharply from Bruce to Strange, his sociable demeanor gone. "You know this man?"

"We've never met," said Strange. "But I know of him. It's the sheerest luck that things happened as they did, despite all the work it took in the end." He smiled fondly at Bruce, who was now awash in the same displaced anxiety that had gripped him at the airport.

Even Tony looked worried. "Work?" asked Fury. "I brought him here because he's the only unaccounted-for passenger in a flight that has every organization in both the public and private sectors of aviation under heavy surveillance. I wanted to show you these." He handed the airplane photographs to Strange, who flicked casually through them with the kind of recognition that stems from seeing a familiar landmark in a postcard.

"Yes," said Strange. "About what I expected. It's such a rare event, even when it occurs naturally. To orchestrate one is almost impossible."

Fury stood up, both fists clenched. "Orchestrate-_you_ did this?" Bruce started forward in his seat. Tony gaped silently.

Strange nodded. "I had help, naturally."

"What-? Why-who? Who helped you?"

"Well, you did, for one. Recall if you will the roster you presented me for the Avenger Initative recruits. You wanted me to help vet those who had mystical abilities, since that sort of thing is outside your scope.

"At the time I was aware of a growing problem that fell under the same aegis. One of your members fit the bill. She was my other source of help."

Bruce stood up, too. His voice came out through gritted teeth. "_What did you do to me?_"

"I didn't do anything to you, Mr. Wayne. Not as such. I opened a very brief portal into another world. Yours, to be specific. None of your identification has any meaning to Mr. Fury's filing systems for the simple reason that you're from a parallel universe."

Tony's mouth dropped open. "Jesus Christ. You're kidding. This is crazy."

"Not at all. Mounting scientific evidence is finally catching up to the fact that-"

"Don't bore them, Doctor," said a clear, feminine voice.

Bruce took a step back and collided into the loveseat, accidentally sitting down again.

Clea stood in the doorway. Leaning on her and looking spent was a strikingly lovely woman in crimson silk pajamas. Her hair spilled over her shoulders in a dark, auburn-tinted cascade, and the eyes in her pale, heart-shaped face were jade green.

It was the woman in red from the plane.

"Mr. Wayne," she said with a weak smile. "I'm sorry to have abandoned you earlier. I'm afraid I collapsed before we could meet properly. My name is Wanda Maximoff. Our friend Mr. Fury has me codenamed under the Avenger Initiative as the Scarlet Witch."


	9. Chapter 9

**9.**

**Revelations From All Over**

"Wanda?" asked Fury. "Maximoff? What are you doing here?"

She ignored Fury and offered Bruce a weak smile. "Mr. Wayne, I really intended to walk you off the plane myself. Unfortunately I almost blacked out. The Doctor brought me back here immediately by magical means, which was good for my health but very frightening for you, I'm sure. I used a tiny portion of my energy to fix things so you'd end up in good hands, which I see worked out quite well. I can't tell you how sorry I am." Despite her attempt at brisk cheer she sounded like a surgeon explaining why the operation didn't fully succeed. Clea sat the red woman down on her hassock and poured her a cup of tea.

"Will someone please explain to me what the hell's going on?" said Fury. "I've spent half a year's budget covering this mess with high-tech spy equipment and my best agents looking for intelligence in every hangar west of the Mississippi, and now you're telling me it's down to two loose cannons _under my department_?"

"I'm afraid I'm the one who pulled you into this universe," she continued, with only a faint nod in Fury's direction. "Doctor Strange opened the door and I took you by the hand, as it were. Mr. Fury and the Doctor can both tell you I have the power to manipulate probabilities." She sipped her tea.

Strange turned to Bruce. "Wanda in particular undertook this task at no small risk to herself."

Wanda glanced at Strange and continued. "When your business trip became known to us, I worked to make sure you'd be on a plane that was in the same airspace at the same time as one in this universe. Then I crossed over in the airport-the Doctor's first handiwork, which was much easier to complete-and traveled with you. It almost drained the life out of me to make sure we flew into the portal and not elsewhere; the Doctor could only approximate. And here you are." She smiled. It was brittle around the edges, apologetic.

There was a pause as everyone worked to assimilate this. Everyone except Fury was still, and everyone watched as Wanda's smile wavered, sank, and fell into a grimace. Her cup tumbled to the floor. She put her face in her hands and wept.

The Doctor got up and knelt beside her, gently patting her shoulder. "You know it's not your fault, Wanda," he said in a low, soothing voice.

"Not her fault what?" asked Fury.

"I tried to make sure they'd be alright," Wanda sobbed.

"You were using all your powers," said the Doctor. "You were altering the laws of another world entirely. If you couldn't save them, you didn't make things any worse."

"What do you mean?" asked Bruce, darting glances back and forth between the two of them.

"The plane you were on crashed," said Wanda shakily. "In your world. I saw it clearer and clearer the closer we got. I tried to spend a little power saving them, but I didn't have enough and even if I did, some...events are...unalterable." She put a hand over her mouth. "A little before Las Vegas. There were children..." Sobs wracked her.

"You were very brave," said Strange. Clea brought a blanket and arranged it over her lap. Everyone looked around awkwardly while another cup of tea was fetched and Wanda's tears finally subsided.

"Why did you bring him here, though?" asked Tony, at length. "Let's just say all this is real. What's the point?"

Wanda drew a deep breath and continued. "We brought him here because Mr. Wayne is a champion in his own world. A hero, like the kind Mr. Fury's trying to help assemble. Like you, Mr. Stark."

Tony looked at Bruce, still bewildered. "What? You do spooky stuff like Little Red Riding Hood over here?"

"Her _codename_ is the Scarlet Witch," reminded Fury, walking in a tight circle with his arms crossed like a man getting bad news from the clinic.

Bruce looked at her, riveted. "How-" He stopped. Reality had shifted around him in some elemental way. If he found he could breathe water or swim through fire, he would have accepted it. In fact, things had changed much earlier, he saw; only now he was able to recognize it.

He looked at Tony. "Not like her, no," he said. "But like what I did to Fury, back at your house."

Fury stopped walking and thrust his face into Bruce's. "You'd better hope they have a way to get you back, Wayne," he spat. "Because outside my protection, I don't know what's going to happen to you here."

"There's no need to alarm our guest," said Strange. "Please, sit."

Tony ignored Fury's outburst and twisted in his seat to get a better look at Bruce. "Really? So you're some kind of martial-arts-expert spy-disabler?"

There was no point in denying it; he'd been seen by at least two people and his secret wasn't meant to be kept here. He felt free, and something in him that had lost its footing since this morning finally regained solid ground.

"No," he said. "I'm Batman."

Tony didn't even have the decency to turn away before he started hooting with laughter. Bruce could have punched him in the face.


	10. Chapter 10

**10.**

**Games And Strategy**

"That's just great," said Fury. "But _why is he here_? Why exactly did you take it upon yourselves to start drawing recruits from-" He stopped. "Why?"

"Thereby hangs quite another tale," said the Doctor, now ensconced in his own chair again. He steepled his fingers against his chin. "One you may have missed the first time around."

Tony sighed. It'd be hours before he could get another drink, he just knew it.

***********

Back on the plane, Fury plopped himself down in a chair near the back of the cabin, tilted it into the sleeping position, and almost vengefully willed himself into a nap. The scowl on his face didn't relax in the least.

Bruce and Tony played a desultory round of chess on a small table near the cabin's front. They focused on the game at first, which offered a much lesser problem.

"So," Tony finally said. "A vampire."

Bruce picked up a pawn. "That's a new one for me, too. They're not exactly thick on the ground back home."

"Yeah, but. This one almost killed that one guy in New York. Fruit loop with his picture plastered across the _Daily Bugle_ front page every other day like it was his personal fanzine or something." Tony hiccupped. "I really need to get to Manhattan more often." He moved a pawn forward. "What's this totem business again? I was kinda zoned out by then. You're an Indian?"

"No," said Bruce. "Totem like the embodiment of an animal spirit. They exist in every culture. Or the belief in them does. And this vampire apparently feeds on them."

"His name's, what, Morlock?"

"Morlun. I've never heard of him, but I wouldn't have. Strange said he can feed from ordinary humans and superhumans, but he prefers superhumans who embody totem energy. Apparently your friend in New York with the spider mojo fought him to a standstill and then killed him, but he has a nasty tendency to come back. Strange sensed him again, somewhere on the West Coast. Anyone you know out there sound like a possible candidate?"

"For Merlin to snack on? Sure, tons. Are you kidding? I just barely got into this gig." Tony took a bishop. "So they brought you here because you're some kind of superhuman bat guy"-here he unsuccessfully covered a smirk-"and they think you'll draw him in and defeat him, is that it?"

"I'm not superhuman. Strange knew that, but he thought it might work anyway. He's afraid that this vampire might come back and finish off the last guy and start going through other people like him. So..." His knight scattered Tony's pawns.

"...so, Strange decided he'd pull you in and use you for bait. And either you kill this thing and get to go back home, or you don't and we're not immediately worse off here, but in your own world, things don't go so well. I realize the Doctor didn't want to put it that bluntly, but..."

"The Doctor believes I'm destined for this, or something like it. He scryed it, so it must be true." Bruce offered a sour smile and looked at the board.

"And you're just supposed to run around Los Angeles at night like it was Gotham and eventually this Mordred is going to zero in on you? And you put a stake through his heart, and then Strange magicks you to your world again? You better hope they don't make the same mistake twice about the transportation. It'd suck to kill Dracula and end up going down on the Titanic when you get back home."

Bruce almost laughed. "Yeah, well. It's the getting around L.A. that worries me right now. Gotham is mostly vertical. L.A. is mostly horizontal. My usual M.O. won't work. I'll need to find a motorcycle at the least." _If only I had the one back in the cave_, he thought wistfully.

"Is anyone missing you?" asked Tony. "What with the plane crash and all?" He winced slightly as he said it. Possibly a bad question. Too late now. His rook picked off another pawn.

"Just my butler," Bruce answered. "His name's Alfred."

"You said in the car this morning," reminded Tony. He deployed a bishop. "He sounds like Jarvis."

"He does at least twice more in a day than Jarvis does," snorted Bruce.

Tony perked up at this. "He's an AI?"

"He's an Englishman." Bruce's queen slid across the open board and cozied up to Tony's king. "Checkmate."

Tony blinked. "Yeah. I'm...gonna change into something more comfortable." He got up and wandered to the small cubicle that served as the plane's walk-in closet. Gratefully, he shucked off the remains of his suit for a pair of jeans and a plain cotton T-shirt with sneakers.

Back in the cabin, he plucked his lunch's small half-empty bottle of sake from the fridge and turned to Bruce. "Wanna slug?"

"Nothing personal, but haven't you already had en-" He stopped midsentence, staring at Tony's chest.

Tony raised his eyebrows. "Did I spill something?" He looked down at the arc reactor, glowing through his shirt. He drummed his fingers self-consciously against it and looked back up at Bruce.

"Oh, _that_," he said.


	11. Chapter 11

**11.**

**Dinner Of Champions**

By the time they got back home, Pepper had left for the day and exhaustion hit both of them like a block of concrete. Bruce didn't even have the strength to chide himself for wanting to rest with a task undone. For once, it would keep.

They ended up on the roof overlooking the Pacific after Tony phoned out for pizza and a case of beer. Both of them rested against the wall, facing the sun as it slid beneath the waves. They ate and talked in the dark, becoming friends.

Tony, rallying himself, told Bruce first about his childhood, mostly concerning his father, and briefly about the car crash that killed his parents. Bruce had his full attention then, which was a little unnerving in its intensity. Then he told about the arc reactor and its origins in detail. He stumbled over Yinsen's part in its creation, then went on, through Obadiah's betrayal and Fury's initial visit. He praised Pepper's courage to a degree that would have made her blush if she'd heard it.

"She's got guts," said Bruce. "You're lucky."

"I don't deserve anyone like her near me," Tony confessed. "But I pay her as much as it takes to keep her around anyway."

Bruce paused. "Are you two-?"

"Nah," said Tony. "She's too good for me. We both know that. I'm over it." He sounded a little too stoic not to have an agenda, but Bruce kept his counsel.

Time passed amicably. They ate a little more, watching the faint pale gleam of whitecaps. Night breezes ruffled their hair and almost sent an empty box over the edge.

Presently Tony asked, "So how come you do...whatever it is being Batman involves? I'm guessing you didn't just look around one day and decide that money and power weren't enough anymore."

Bruce didn't answer, his head turned away. He stayed like that for so long Tony thought he'd given offense or not been heard. Once or twice Bruce's jaw flexed, as if he started to speak but then thought the better of it. Finally his voice came, steady and calm, unspooling the story.

"My parents and I went to see a show. I was nine."

He told Tony about the sound of gunshots, the gloss of blood on dirty pavement, the echo of running footsteps. Flashing red lights, the grim cheer of police-station linoleum. The funeral, his heavy woolen coat, the cold rain not quite frozen as it fell. His hand in Alfred's. The thick china mug of hot tea back at the kitchen afterward. How he knew with utter finality, as Alfred sat him in the little wooden chair he'd outgrown the year before, that he'd never see his parents again.

He didn't tell about the baronial gloom of a mansion haunted by a young boy, the thick loneliness that enveloped him completely as dust in an unused room. Of how he was at once an object of pity to others and at the same time merely a spoiled rich boy, no better than he should be. How he labored diligently in school so Alfred would say, "Your father would be so proud,"; how he took pains with his appearance to hear the familiar remark, "Your mother always said you'd break hearts." The birthday parties consisting of two people and a homemade cake. The friends he couldn't quite make.

Tony knew about this without being told. He remembered instead his parents' big old Bel Air house, the educational toys he remade again and again, the comforts of invention and technology, but he knew. He hadn't seen the wan light filtering through heavy brocade curtains to lie on the parquet floor of Bruce's home, the calm despair it evoked, but he remembered many long, adolescent afternoons by the pool when the sun burned with idiot brilliance and the meaning fled from everything. It was the same kind of emptiness.

Bruce looked out to sea, still calm, but once or twice minute tremors took him. "Their-in two weeks it's the...anniversary of their deaths. I have to-" his voice hitched. "I have to put roses on-" He stuttered to a halt.

"Well," Tony began reasonably, and all at once he saw how lost Bruce really was and how very little comfort his words could possibly begin to offer; and then he saw again the pool at Bel Air and the shaggy palm trees reflected in it and something in his chest fell sideways. His face started to crumple. He scooted over and threw an arm around Bruce's shoulders, eyes welling up. "Hey," he said, shyly, "hey," and couldn't manage anything else.

Bruce threw a returning one-armed embrace back and squeezed Tony's shoulder with a ferocity that would have scared him under other circumstances. Tony laid his head alongside Bruce's and they clamped in a half-hug, staring ahead, red-faced and silent. Tony turned to look Bruce in the eye. An ocean of pain and understanding washed between them. Bruce wiped away tears in one quick swipe and said, "You took me in. You took me in. Thanks." His voice trembled as he said it. He tried to smile.

"We'll get you back, OK?" said Tony. "Whatever it takes. We'll get you back. It'll be fine." Then Bruce threw both arms around him and Tony did the same to Bruce and they shook and clung, rocking back and forth gently, soothingly. Tony thought of Rhodey's inclination for spontaneous back-pounding hugs and Pepper's deft maternal touch when applying a bandage and now Bruce holding him like a brother and he realized what a lucky, lucky asshole he was, to have them in his life at all, a lucky asshole who'd shrivel up and die without them; good people were killed with no explanation and other people came in their stead and nothing was fair and nothing made sense but it was OK. It was OK. He'd be OK.

They separated after a while, looking out on the waves, peacefully empty, and both of them surreptitiously wiped their noses on their shirts. The breeze picked up, drying damp faces.

Presently Bruce looked at Tony and smiled. He looked mildly, happily unhinged.

"What?" asked Tony, a big goofy grin creeping over his own face.

"Bugs," said Bruce, cracking up.

Tony looked down and saw a battalion of winged insects fluttering and darting in the arc reactor's glow. A particularly large and intrepid moth dove straight into it, bouncing off with a loud bonk. Both of them burst out laughing.

"You can always-" snickered Bruce, "you can always rent yourself out as a bug zapper."

Something occurred to Tony and threatened to give him apoplexy. "It looked like-it looked-" He was beet-red and gasping. "It looked like you did in the limo this morning! One crash and-" he smacked a hand against his chest.

They doubled over, howling. "You son of a bitch!" Bruce choked out, punching Tony's arm. Tony slugged him back. "You asshole! _You broke my limo!_" Another round of hilarity took them.

"Oh, Jesus," Tony said after they finished. "What a day. You want another beer?"

Bruce shook his head, still giggling. "I need to get rid of what I've got. Where's the john from here?"

Tony got unsteadily to his feet. "Shit, me too." He nodded at the edge of the roof. "Right over there."

"From up _here_?"

"Why do you think I built it like this? Best piss you'll ever take."

They made use of darkness and privacy-Bruce now quite seriously resolving to buy a beach house if he ever made it back to Gotham in one piece-and sat back against the wall.

"Oh, and," said Tony. "Jarvis scanned for some approximate measurements while you were passed out. I mean, in case the police were looking for you at the time, but still, it came in handy. Some new clothes should be here for you tomorrow. As long as you're staying, you're gonna need-no, no, you're not paying me back, dickhead, shut up a minute-you're gonna need something else to wear, and my stuff won't fit. You're half a head taller than me and you've got at least thirty pounds more muscle. Speaking of which, how'd you get so buff? The whole Batman thing come into it? I still don't know how _that_ happened."

"Yeah, right, right," said Bruce. "When I was a kid, I was deathly afraid of bats." He paused. Some other painful memory surfaced in his eyes, but he pushed it down and continued. "Then after college, I was in prison for a while-"

"Prison?" Tony looked incredulous. "You're kidding."

"Prison," nodded Bruce. "In China. A man from the outside showed up in my cell and offered me a chance to overcome my phobia and learn how to fight crime."

"Riiiiight," said Tony. "I'll bet you were trained by ninjas, too."


	12. Chapter 12

**12.**

**Bruce Gets A New Suit**

The day got a later start than usual, thanks to last night's beer. Both of them lounged separately in their rooms the next morning, talking via the intercom (better than a land phone for clarity) and watching TV while absorbing a particularly foul but effective hangover cure concocted by Tony's chef. It was implicitly understood that they were both negligent by behaving this way when there was an enemy on the loose. It was equally understood that anyone who didn't like it could go fuck themselves.

Around 10am they met for breakfast and wandered down to Tony's workshop.

"So what's this suit you kept talking about yesterday?" asked Bruce. "I didn't see it on the plane."

"The suit's a third version of the one I built to escape the terrorist camp. It was in a holding bay yesterday. I'll show it to you in a minute. Meantime, exactly what gear do you need to go out and butt heads with this Matlock? I can have it made in probably under a day. Gimme the specs?" He picked up a mechanical pencil and a drawing pad.

He was finishing up a draft of Bruce's instructions when Jarvis chimed in. "Mr. Rhodes, sir. Shall I put him through as usual?"

"Sure. Hey, Rhodey, what's up?"

"Tony, I'm on a plane back from Washington. I thought you might want to know about some Prometheus missiles getting resold to a terrorist faction. The dropoff's near a little town called Dhamiq. I gave Jarvis the coordinates. I can't really talk right now. I'm not even supposed to know about this, but I overheard it at the Tabard on N Street. Couple of Pentagon types at lunch. I had on my civvies. I guess they didn't think Air Force eats anything but slop."

"That last shipment I couldn't turn up? Rhodey, you're a regular James Bond."

"Yeah, yeah. You better hurry; the whole thing's only supposed to take about 30 minutes, but you got some time to get there. Oh, hey, Fury backed off. I think we're OK now."

"He came here. It's been settled. You are in the clear. I'll explain later." Rhodey rang off.

Tony turned to Bruce. "You remember I told you about my change of heart, as it were?" He tapped the arc reactor. "Well, I have a very long list of weapons caches to destroy. Ones with my name on them." He held up his coffee mug with the Stark Industries logo and took a gulp. "And we just found one I've been especially keen to get rid of. I hate to do this to you, but I'm gonna have to go about halfway around the world in a very little time and blow them up. Jarvis can work on your designs while I'm gone." He paused. "I should be back in time for dinner."

"You're just going to leave me here?" Bruce sounded like a jilted prom date.

"Sorry, but I can't very well-"

"Actually, sir," Jarvis put in, "when you said, 'Make Mr. Wayne a suit' I rather thought you meant something else, given what he's here for. I've retooled the Mark II to fit him. It might be a bit snug, but I think it'll do."

"Great," said Bruce. "Where do I suit up?"

"Jarvis," said Tony, "That is _not_ what I meant. He can't possibly-"

"I thought you had to get moving," cut in Bruce. He looked at Tony evenly.

"Yeah, and I can't look after you while I'm trying to-"

"Look after me? I spend the night jumping from skyscrapers and putting away criminals. Show me the controls and let me go."

"It'll only take a minute more to get the Mark II ready, sir," said Jarvis helpfully. "I've done some moderations on the assembly bay to accommodate it. They'll be useful to you _and_ Mr. Wayne as well."

"This," said Tony, pinching the bridge of his nose, "is not happening."

Bruce clapped him on the shoulder. "Sure it isn't," he said cheerfully. "I'll even go first. Where do I-?"

"Please put on the underlining, sir," said Jarvis. A compartment slid up from the black grid on the middle of the workshop floor. It held a folded garment traced with silver lines and looked a little like a scuba diver's outfit. "It helps you interface into the suit's system better. I'll be in there with you and Mr. Stark."

Bruce skimmed his clothes off down to his briefs and zipped in. "I thought you needed an arc reactor to power this thing?" he asked Tony.

"I built some spares after Obie's little meltdown. One of them's already in the Mark II." He sighed.

Bruce followed Jarvis's instructions and stepped onto the grid itself. Cybernetic arms emerged seamlessly from above and below and placed the armor on him with meticulous precision. He felt like an insect going through some primal if strange metamorphosis. When it apparently had finished, he stepped away from the grid. The thing weighed a ton, but its onboard controls responded to his movements and cost him little effort.

Tony's mouth was open. After a minute, he managed, "Jarvis? What is this?"

"What is what, sir?"

"'What is what, sir?' _Why is the Mark II black?_"

"Because I redesigned it that way, sir. You seemed to enjoy my modifications for the Mark III, and I've never seen a silver bat before, so I took the liberty of-"

"And why does it have _horns_ now?"

"Those are additional sensory apparati. Essentially, if Mr. Wayne is harmed or his suit overtaken by hostile forces, I can override his systems completely and bring him back or stash him in a neutral zone. You, being naturally more familiar with the controls, require no such devices." Jarvis paused. "I thought making them into bat ears was a nice touch. Given the specifications for the outfit Mr. Wayne requires later, it seems I was a bit ahead of the game."

"Jarvis, do you remember who you work for?" asked Tony, fuming.

"I work ceaselessly in your best interests, whether or not you yourself lose sight of them," replied Jarvis primly. "Which is why I must remind you that you have little time to waste."

"Yeah, fine," snapped Tony. "I'm donating you to NASA the minute I get back." He yanked on his own underlining, stomped over to the assembly grid.

"I'll just tell Miss Potts to advertise for a replacement, then," said Jarvis. "There you go. Ready for flight. Mr. Wayne, if you'll turn your head left, you'll see the shop's video feedback display. You're the rather tall one in front."

He had a moment of vertigo and then focused. The image that greeted him was like a tank crossed with a statue if the whole thing had been designed by a bored anime fan with an obsession for detail.

Bruce turned to Tony, gleaming in red and gold. "Sharp. How do I look?"

"Like a hearse next to a hot rod," sniped Tony. "Let me guide you out. I'll give you a tutorial once we clear the metro area. And for God's sake, if you have to go, tell me now."


	13. Chapter 13

**13.**

**An Ambusher Ambushed**

It was like flying in the Tumbler. It was like _being_ the Tumbler, in midair. It was like nothing else he'd ever experienced. For the duration of the flight to Dhamiq, Bruce felt such a pure, unsullied rush of ecstasy that he wanted to remain in the sky forever, hurtling through endless blue.

Bruce's enthusiasm melted Tony's bad humor in spite of himself. He gave up trying to behave like a stern mentor and sprinkled various lessons-how to control the repulsors, how to calibrate for a landing, how to pull up various screen interfaces via eye or mouth movements-amid stratospheric play. They swooped and dove around each other, went supersonic, deployed the flaps and shot back past each other. The insides of their helmets rang with loud, boyish whoops. Jarvis helpfully pointed out various features and maneuvers to Bruce and kept both of them on course.

After a long, dizzying, joyful flight, they started to approach the target area. Detailed coordinates scrolled by on their heads-up displays.

"How do we sneak up on them?" asked Bruce.

"Sneak?" said Tony. "In these things? You're kidding, right?" He suddenly dove and the backwash of air almost made Bruce lose his bearings. He banked and shot down after Tony, trying to keep up.

The ground rushed towards them at frightening speed, the indefinite resolving into the particular. Bruce's stomach was slammed down into his heels. He was terrified. Sweat spring up on his palms inside the suit. The vertigo made his head spin.

He'd never been happier in his life.

"OK, now, get ready-" said Tony, slowing and repositioning into a crouch, and then he just wasn't there. With a concussive blast a tiny figure spiraled down and away and hit the ground, limbs flailing. The impact crater was enormous.

A high, faint, whistling noise like a fly inside a window grew closer. Bruce, caught off guard, turned his head to locate it and found himself yanked to one side.

"Excuse me, sir," said Jarvis urgently. "I just pulled you out of the path of an incoming missile. I'm afraid Mr. Stark was hit. He should be alright for the moment, but he needs to clear the area. Although I doubt he will."

It took him a moment to realize that the sudden spray of light across his vision came from his own armor. The display screen dimmed and went to infrared. "I've also just fired flares. They will hopefully divert the missile-ah, yes, that was it behind you." A giant clapped its hands above and behind Bruce. Another blast of air smacked him forward. "Mr. Wayne, Mr. Stark will be able to right himself in a moment. I'm going to complete the override and take you about ten miles away until Mr. Stark is finished."

"No, sorry," said Bruce. Adrenaline seethed through him. "I've been studying your programming since I woke up at the house. I've hacked in. You're coming with me. Keep me posted on anything I need to know." He intoned a rapid series of binary sequences, inputting override commands.

"Sir, you have no idea what you're doing," said Jarvis with alarm. Bruce laughed. He dove down again, and the tiny dots on the ground became people, two convoys meeting in a narrow valley. Tony's limp metal form lay half a kilometer to the south, where the valley opened up into a greater stretch of desert. Far to the north was the tiny Dhamiq, a clutch of small buildings and little else.

"Tony, you OK?" he asked. Another missile streaked past him. A third followed it. He swerved and flew towards the second one, already turning to meet him again. He made straight for it, the third tailing him, then drove hard away to the side. The missiles crashed into each other and detonated.

"Mmm," came the reply. "I should have seen that." He sounded weak, disoriented.

"Right," said Bruce. "Stay put. I'll be there in a minute." He pulled up the targeting system. "Is there a loudspeaker on this thing?" he asked Jarvis. "And what language are these people most likely to speak?"

"Yes there is," answered Jarvis, "and English is the common tongue for men in their trade, given the various incompatible languages each of them likely spoke first."

"Good. Turn on the noise and let's go." He spiraled down. "Your attention, please. The Prometheus missiles will be destroyed in less than a minute. Cease fire and clear the area. This is your only warning."

Below he saw a single man with a small mobile missile launcher readying to fire again. He aimed straight for it and slammed through, tearing the weapon like crepe paper and cardboard. One-handed, he whisked the man away and up with him. His hand clamped a squirming shoulder that almost dislocated. Screams echoed all around him. He laughed.

Bullets bounced off his armor as he came down again, dropping the man at a height just low enough not to break bones. He hovered, raised his arms, and fired the repulsors at a rock outcropping overhead, twin streaks of pure energy pouring from his hands.

The results were satisfying beyond measure. Rubble sized from pebbles to boulders tumbled to the ground, far enough away not to land on anyone, near enough to send the men diving in a panic for their vehicles. One of them unhooked the payload of Prometheus missiles from the cab of his truck and then leaped behind the wheel, stomping the gas pedal. Several others flung themselves at it, clinging to the hood, the running board, anything that offered purchase.

Behind the payload, a small fleet of battered Jeeps skidded in reverse, several disparate dialects shrieking to heaven for mercy. Two crashed into each other and pulled away, doors and fenders hanging, then finally drove off in the opposite direction. In less than twenty seconds, the area was clear.

"That was very fortunate, sir," said Jarvis. "But I believe Mr. Stark still needs help. His vital signs now indicate delayed stress. It's impossible to open him up here. You'll need to help him back, I'm afraid."

Bruce flew to Tony and landed in the middle of the impact crater, next to him. "I thought your suit could withstand that kind of assault."

"Little more than I got hit with last time," said Tony. He sounded like he was on the edge of consciousness. "Aries anti-aircraft missiles. Sonuvabitches bite hard." His head lolled back, then upright again. He struggled to his feet. "Jarvis told me you-handled it. Shit." He coughed, a staticky sound inside the audio link. "I might as well have stayed home." He teetered. Bruce grabbed him.

"Jarvis, you ican/i override his suit," Bruce said. "I'm putting in the commands right now. Fly him back. I'm going to finish up here and catch him in a minute."

"Your abilities are most impressive," said Jarvis, in a tone that conveyed more dismay than admiration. "I'll get him airborne and have Miss Potts summon S.H.I.E.L.D.'s medical team. Please be careful."

Tony blasted off, only the slight tilt of his neck giving away his condition. Bruce calculated, flew to an acceptably safe height, and sent a long series of repulsor blasts down to the stash of weapons. Even at his altitude, the blast as they detonated all at once punched him higher. He climbed further and surveyed the area. The village was safe, the arms traders out of range.

He left and caught up with Tony. "You OK in there?"

"I think I'm bleeding a little," said Tony. "I'm not sure. I'm still kinda fuzzy." He cleared his throat like a man trying to shake sleep off. "For Christ's sake, I'm useless. I should send you out from now on." He sounded angry.

Bruce took this as a sign of encouragement. His injuries might not be as bad as they sounded. Keeping Tony awake until they got back was his main goal. "Hey, did I ever tell you about the Russian triplets I dated at Princeton?" he lied.

Tony's head snapped up. "_What!_"

Bruce smiled. He'd get Tony home OK. "So I was at this party..."


	14. Chapter 14

**14.**

**From Two Different Worlds**

"I'm _fine_," said Tony, trying to sit up. The S.H.I.E.L.D. physician pushed him relentlessly back down.

"No sir, Mr. Stark. You're under 24-hour watch. You're lucky you don't have any internal bleeding, but borderline shock is nothing to sneeze at. You will remain in this bed of your own accord or I'll give you a tranquilizer whether you want it or not."

"Don't worry about a tranquilizer," said Pepper, eyes dry but red. "I'll knock him unconscious myself." She shot an accusing look at Bruce.

The three of them stood over Tony, who was in one of his own guest bedrooms. The S.H.I.E.L.D. team had converted it into an impromptu intensive care/trauma unit. A lot of the equipment looked unfamiliar and Bruce was willing to bet over half of it couldn't be found in the most cutting-edge medical facilities in North America. Just as well Tony wasn't in a hospital.

Tony had the temerity to grin at her. "OK. I'll stay put. You totally wear the pants in this relationship and you like that, don't you?"

She colored, glared at him as if about to slap him, and then spun on her heel to leave. The click of her Italian leather pumps was the aural equivalent of a finger wagged in his face.

Bruce looked uneasily around. "If you, ah, don't need me..."

Tony put on an expression of theatrical woundedness. "Oh, c'mon, sugar pants! Don't leave me in bed all by myself." He batted his lashes just a degree shy of camp. The agency doc looked back and forth between Tony and a rapidly blushing Bruce with surprise and disapproval. When he turned his back to consult a monitor, Tony grinned again and stuck out his tongue.

"Yeah," said Bruce heavily. "See you." He trudged out of the room and down to his own to shower and change clothes. All the way back from Dhamiq, he'd felt responsible for getting Tony home in one piece much the same as he would've for anyone. With the memory of Pepper's anger burning through him, he felt actual guilt. Less for Tony than for her, afraid and helpless in the face of her boss's chosen path.

It must be what Alfred felt like, actually. New understanding washed through him, coupled with dread and a stab of homesickness that almost brought tears. Right now in Wayne Manor's kitchen, Alfred would have just finished a cup of tea and a chocolate digestive biscuit, imported from England, his one indulgence. Such modest pleasures, such an easily fortified spirit. He gave so much and asked so little and worried himself sick over his charge and somehow never lost his good cheer.

Perhaps in yet another world Pepper and Alfred knew each other. Perhaps they were both heroes, as a sober Tony and an unassuming Bruce served them quietly in the background, bent double with the burden of caring.

He slammed the water off and stepped out of the shower. He wanted to spit at his reflection in the mirror. Scrubbing himself dry with sharp, rough motions, he yanked on a clean outfit and went downstairs.

She was in the kitchen, drinking a diet soda in front of the sink, tipping it back like a lifesaving elixir, eyes closed. Her skin, porcelain, translucent, glowed even in her exhaustion. Her lashes curled elegantly against her cheek. The motion of her throat as she swallowed was so unconsciously animal next to her usual poised grace that he stopped breathing for a second. A lock of hair slipped out of place and brushed against her jaw. He felt a giant's hand squeeze his midsection.

She put the can halfway down and caught sight of him from the corner of her eye. Dropping it, she yelped and whirled around, leaping back and crashing against the counter.

"I'm sorry," he said, holding out an apologetic hand. "I came to find you. I thought you heard me." Except of course he always moved in unconscious silence as he'd been trained. Yes. Big scary hero too focused on his mission to worry about upsetting a few of the little people. He went from feeling awkward to outright hating himself.

Her eyes, even wider than they'd been yesterday when she broke up the standoff, changed from startled to furious. Sky-blue to laser-blue. He wanted to cheer her on in her anger. He deserved wrath.

"Mr. Wayne," she said, controlling her voice with great effort, "I still have almost no idea why you're here. Or what kind of influence you have that lets you waltz into a stranger's home and make yourself welcome. Mr. Stark likes you and finds you trustworthy, and S.H.I.E.L.D. says you're safe. But I don't believe any of it yet." She took a step forward and pointed up and past Bruce. "That man is my boss and it's my job to keep him on safe ground. Or as safe as I can given the lunatic stunts he's taken to pulling. You are inot/i helping. You're encouraging this. Now give me one good reason why I shouldn't go against everyone's wishes and call the cops this minute. They might not get very far with S.H.I.E.L.D. around but the press would have a field day and you'd definitely be out of my hair."

She was bluffing; she'd never make her boss look bad. But she was tired and frayed and at the end of her rope. Bruce nodded. "I understand, Miss Potts. I'm sorry. What do you know about me so far?" He made the question as cordial as he could.

"I know you're _not_ the person we were supposed to get from the airport. I know a top-secret government agency has an interest in you. I know you've hacked Jarvis. I know you and Tony both left this morning in good condition and you came back OK while he could've died. I know your full description and I could link up to an FBI database if I wanted to and cross-reference you with all known criminals until I turned something up. I know Mr. Fury probably already did that. And I know the government can still make mistakes. They don't look after Tony like-" she stopped, clamping her jaw. _Like I do_, she was going to say.

Bruce nodded, pulled himself into the center of his body a little, abashed. "I know it looks suspicious. I'd feel the same way. Would you like me to answer your questions? Will you trust me to tell you more?" Something in his hesitant manner thawed Pepper just a little. She unconsciously turned her head slightly to one side, narrowed her eyes speculatively.

"Tell me, then," she finally said.

He stood there, hands crossed in front of him penitently, and told her what had happened to him. Apparently S.H.I.E.L.D. hadn't briefed her as much as he'd thought. She listened to the more fantastic elements of his story with opaque neutrality. At first he tried to elaborate on his own disbelief in the whole thing but then simply told it without editorial comment.

At the end, she stared straight at him, not replying. Finally, after a full minute's worth of silence, she said, "Well", and then stopped speaking again.

"I know," he answered. "I don't believe it either."

"I don't know if I believe it or not," she said, "but you certainly do, anyway." The tense set of her shoulders relaxed slightly. "Now-" she took another step forward and something clattered tinnily by her foot. She immediately looked down. The toe of her pump rested in a sticky brown puddle of cola. "Oh, for _God's_ sake-" She looked around for the paper towel dispenser.

Bruce sprang into action. "Please, let me." He snatched a roll off the counter and mopped at the liquid. Down on one knee, he picked up the can and handed it to her. Another lock of her hair escaped its place as she looked down at him. Bruce had a sudden absurd vision of her as a virtuous schoolmarm and himself as a gunslinger, offering her a handpicked bunch of bluebells. It was silly and childish and he wanted very much at that moment for it to be true. To give her something beautiful and valuable. To show her he knew what a valiant, amazing woman she was.

Something in his expression altered slightly and Pepper saw it, taking the can slowly from him. Then she looked back down at her foot, lifting it gingerly.

"Here," he said, and grasped her ankle gently. The calluses on his fingers rasped slightly against the body-warmed weave of her stockings. A tiny shock ran through her under his hand, a minute relay from her limbic system. She leaned very carefully back to brace herself on the counter with one hand as Bruce dabbed her shoe clean. Their eyes never left each other. Her mouth parted slightly as he adjusted his grasp and he nearly lifted her foot, shoe and all, to his lips.

Tony Stark's heart got a lot of play around this place. He wondered how much Pepper's did. He wondered how much more she'd like.

Finally, deliberately, she said "Thank you." Her shoe was clean and most of the puddle was gone. She took the soggy bundle from him and threw it away as he finished. Brisker now, she added, "I'dve gotten that. Would you like some coffee?"

"I'd love some." He didn't need caffeine, really, with his own heart going like a hammer, but he'd take a cup of arsenic if she was offering.

"Just sit there at the table," she directed. "Do you take cream?"

"No, but I'd love some sugar." The minute he said it he realized how it sounded, but she compressed a smile and flicked her eyes once at him as if he'd said something terribly improper. He smiled stupidly back. He felt very lost in her competence and for once didn't mind not having the upper hand. Perhaps there would be coffee spilled, too, and he could show off his fabulous cleaning skills again. He was aware of making a fool of himself and couldn't be bothered to care. She set a mug down in front of him.

After getting a cup of herbal tea for herself, sweetened with honey-he looked at her squeezing it from a narrow plastic bottle and actually blushed, at which she laughed out loud, girlishly-she sat at the table with him and talked, the physical tension between them dormant but still there.

She chatted about this and that and he summoned his charm, skillfully drawing her out. She was from an East Coast family, nominally Southern, that dated far enough back to claim a royal land grant. A long string of military officers among the men and society matrons among the women. An idyllic childhood, adolescent cotillions, her debut, her entrance with honors into one of the Seven Sisters. Her father, dying suddenly of a stroke while she was away, an older man but still too young to go. Her mother, unable to cope, degenerating mentally until she had to be put into a home. The chance meeting that led to employment with Tony, where she'd been ever since, degree unfinished.

Pepper didn't mention any man, and gave no hint of one in her omissions, either. He knew her story very well, though, just the same. Her family had more good name than money and a determination to do things right, a lesser branch on the dying tree of American aristocracy. In a world before her father's death, she'd had plenty of time to blossom, luxuriate in possible futures, prepare herself for what she wanted. In the aftermath, her true mettle came out, the blood of soldiers steeling her for the choices, hard and few, left to her.

He wondered if, alone in the small hours, she wept for lost possibilities. But it was maudlin of him to think about it and none of his business besides. In the daylight hours at least she was reconciled and clear-eyed and ready for anything.

"So I never went back," she said. "I never really knew what I was going to do. But I keep Mom's bills paid and I'm going to save up to finish my studies." Her gaze fluttered and dipped. He knew, too what she meant. She'd start saving for school after her mother died and there were no more expenses. She couldn't spare anything now, because of course she'd have put her mother in the best nursing home money could buy. She was that sort of daughter.

He looked at her as she studied the tabletop. "Miss Potts," he said, "you are a very remarkable woman."

After another long moment she looked up at him. She was clearly tasting the compliment, seeing if it made sense. In most people's eyes she'd been a cool icon of efficiency for so long she barely remembered the self she'd had to shed.

Then she smiled, tucking her head down for just a second. Diffusing his words, making them safe. "Well, thank you, Mr. Wayne," she said.

"I mean it, Miss Potts." Of course she wouldn't drop her defenses that easily, not for anyone. The armor of her circumstances prevented it. He placed his hand halfway across the table. "The most remarkable women I've ever met."

She didn't hesitate more than a second this time, nor did she smile dismissively. She slid her hand, cautiously and deliberately, towards his. He felt sparks of energy the closer she got, six inches away. Five. Four inches. Three, two.

An inch away he felt its warmth, could anticipate the thrillingly sharp edge of her shell-pink manicured nails. A faint smell of lotion reached him, something floral and old-fashioned. Her wrist was narrow, fragile, lightly traced with blue veins.

The round silver thing at his elbow that he'd mistaken for an avant-garde sugar dish squawked once; then Tony's voice came through, crystal clear. "Potts? You in the kitchen?"

She froze, then retracted her hand. She looked like a woman who'd received an insult from an oblivious drunk at a dull party but was too game to show her irritation. "Yes, Tony, I'm here." The sigh in her voice pierced Bruce's heart. That and her use of his host's first name, formalities dropped in her sudden weariness.

"Where's Bruce?" He sounded hedgingly suspicious.

"Right here," said Bruce, sipping his coffee again.

"You two makin' time down there?" asked Tony with false brightness. They locked eyes once more, now in mute disgust.

"What do you need?" asked Pepper. "We're having coffee."

"Well, bring me some," he said petulantly. "They said I could have a little. I'm thirsty."

Bruce nodded at her. "I'll take it up." He had another brief, satisfying vision of standing over the bed with a steaming mug and smashing it into Tony's face, over and over again. Not that he'd really follow through. Of course he wouldn't.

Pepper got up and fixed Tony's coffee expertly, the way he liked it. Tony got any number of things the way he liked them. Just like Bruce, come to think of it. His anger mounted.

When he took the mug from Pepper, their fingers brushed. He tried to move away, but she laid a hand on his arm.

"You're really from someplace called Gotham? In another world?"

He nodded. "I am."

She repeated the nod. "Then I wish you a safe journey back when your work here is done." Something in her gaze faded and then she let him go with a friendly and wholly platonic smile. He looked after her for a minute longingly, then left the kitchen.

Upstairs in Tony's room, he did indeed lean over the bed. His body language left no room for misinterpretation. "What?" asked Tony.

Bruce came closer, dug his fingers into Tony's arm, hissed in his face. "Let me tell you something," he said. "You're going to give that woman a raise. A very large one."

"I don't have a problem with that," said Tony, "but she's not _your_ assistant and I already pay her-" he inhaled sharply as Bruce's grip tightened. A monitor beeped in the corner. The S.H.I.E.L.D. doctor tried to move Bruce and got shoved backwards for his trouble.

"Listen to me," he said. "You are going to give that woman a very large raise. You are also going to assume full responsibility for her mother's healthcare bills. Do you know what I'm talking about? No? Well now you do. I know she never told you. She wouldn't have. And you're going to make this effective immediately. Do we understand each other?"

"Christ!" Tony freed his arm as Bruce relaxed his hand. "For God's sake, what the hell are you doing? You think I can't take care of my own assistant?" He rubbed his arm and looked more closely at Bruce. "What did you do down there?"

"Nothing," said Bruce, and it was true, and that hurt the worst. "Drink your coffee." He left and went back into his room, then climbed out onto the roof outside the sliding glass doors near his bed, a different section than the one they'd gotten drunk together on.

He spent a long time with his hands in his pockets, looking out over the Pacific, thinking of Alfred and home and all the many regrets a person could accrue without even trying. Then he went back inside and apologized to Tony, who was on the phone, making arrangements as dictated for Pepper's mother.

"If I ask you to get me a sandwich this time, do you tear my arm off all the way when you bring it back?" he asked.

"Nah," said Bruce. "I just break it. Roast beef OK?"


	15. Chapter 15

**15.**

**Bruce Gives Tony The Slip**

"You sure you're OK like this? You have no idea what the gangs are like out here," said Tony. Then, after a moment, "Come to think of it, neither do I."

A day had passed since their run to Dhamiq. Bruce stood in Tony's workshop, one foot resting on the fat-tired bike he'd requested. It looked weird and clunky and yet somehow menacing. He wore the armored, caped outfit Jarvis had made for him, nothing but his eyes and a snippet of his lower face visible.

"The suit's enough," said Bruce. His voice had dropped two octaves and rasped out in a scratchy growl. Tony made himself not take a step back. Bruce was no longer the man he'd palled around with for the last couple of days. Something much darker and fiercer looked out at him from the bat-eared cowl, not exactly glaring, but measuring him. This was what Wanda and the Doctor had seen, and chosen to bring into this world. He thought of fairytales, the looming spires of Old World castles, dense forests where beasts lurked and the small and innocent could become lost, forever.

"I've got a sensor on the bike," Tony informed him. "I don't care that much about losing it, but I want to know where you are in case anything happens."

I'll be fine. Rest up and heal." Bruce straddled the seat and kicked the bike on. "I'll be in stealth mode until I get into the city. High-crime areas are programmed into the GPS, along with police stations. I should be back in time for breakfast."

"So you're going to drive around getting into fights until this idiot finds you, just to clarify?" asked Tony over the bike's engine, which was surprisingly quiet.

"Something like that," said Bruce. "Don't wait up." Then he was gone.

"Jarvis?"

"Right away, sir." Arms descended from the ceiling, bearing component parts of red and gold armor. "You'll be hard put to follow him unobtrusively, if I may say so."

"I'm just gonna be on aerial maneuvers and basic systems checks out over the water, OK? Unless I get a distress signal or something." Tony shrugged out of his clothes and into the lining.

"Like the one from the other sensor you placed inside his cowl, sir?"

"I give it an hour until he finds it, tops. What he does about it-"

On a flat glass monitor across the workshop, there was a flare of red light, then a fizzling noise from the audio.

"It appears he found it, disabled it, and discarded it about 200 yards down the road," said Jarvis.

"Mmm," said Tony. "Color me shocked." The assembly finished around him and the helmet's faceplate snapped down. "No time like the present." He leaned forward, accelerated, and shot out of the familiar domestic comforts of his home, up into the waiting night.

"I asked you once," he said, and there was a wet snap as he twisted the limb in his grip. The eyes peering at him over the hand he had clamped on the other man's mouth widened even further. A hot exhalation pushed against his palm. Sleekly styled blond hair trembled in disarray. He smiled.

"Do you enjoy your work? Preying on the weak? I don't want to hear about the sins of your customers, either. I want to talk about yours. Now: who's your supplier and where can I find him?" He removed his hand.

A high-pitched stream of babble spurted out like blood from a slashed artery. In the spill of words, he caught a name and an address. With one last wrench, he dropped the dealer and mounted his bike again, tapping into the police band with his cowl's radio link and informing them of his victim's location, then switching off. There was another long, low sob from behind him as he pulled out into the street again, and then he was off to the new address.

Patrolling in L.A. was like selecting food from the world's longest buffet. You could travel for miles in either direction and never cease to find something that clamored for attention. The very thought of it gave him a tinge of fatigue. He was already getting a feel for the rhythms of street-level crime and the shadowy powers that allowed it to flourish. It was more like trailing through several different outlying baronies than one city-state, each with their own laws and customs. In Gotham, even the most esoteric subcultures paid heed to the larger ways of the city, and everything was contained in a much smaller, more vertically-scaled area.

Perhaps this would be his new home, however. Perhaps Morlun would never show, or had met his fate elsewhere. And he would never, ever see Alfred or Gordon again, never put roses on his parents' graves again, never have to bear the weight of Gotham on his shoulders again.

How he'd manage Los Angeles seemed, in the warm California air, like less of a problem than it should have. Somehow the thought of never going home almost felt like a comfort. He knew exactly what messes he'd made, which other ones he bore the blame for, and how desperate the whole situation was. He was the thread holding it all together, and the tension was gone now, for a magical time, maybe forever.

It shamed him to think like this, but he couldn't help it.

Then for a second there was a prickling sensation at the nape of his neck. In the dark, at high velocity, taking every hidden, unused route he could find-a feat in itself-he was being watched.

He checked every sensor, on the bike and in the cowl. Nothing.

There was a flash of white in his peripheral vision. He whipped his head to look, and saw nothing again. The prickling went away. With no other recourse, he noted it and went on, fully alert.

The rest of the night passed unremarkably. The address yielded a dealer with a cadre of urban warriors for bodyguards, all of whom were easy enough to take out. The location was still gritty, which meant the real supplier who lived at a much better address was further up the food chain. He extracted more information, left more info on the police band, and wound up going back to Tony's, exhausted.

A tiny hint of sun made itself known in the east as he slid into Tony's garage. A folded pair of pajamas waited for him. He could faintly hear the sounds of Tony moving around upstairs.

Taking off the Batsuit was a private ritual, one only shared in Alfred's presence. With the disorientation of removing it alone, in a different space, he realized how very badly he did want to go home after all, and was ashamed of himself even more.

But he was also tired and hungry, and presently went upstairs to scrounge for food.

Tony waited at the kitchen table, shoveling in scrambled eggs. "Hi, snuggles, I made you breakfast today. You like your toast scorched or in actual ashes?"

Bruce shook his head and poured coffee. "So, how far did you follow me?" He crunched a piece of bacon that, despite Tony's warnings, was quite edible.

"I didn't," said Tony. "I went out putting the suit through its paces just to make sure Jarvis had it fixed all the way after that fiasco in Dhamiq." His sunny demeanor clouded over. "I still can't believe I screwed up like that." He looked across the table at Bruce again. "How'd it go?"

Bruce gave him a quick rundown. "Not that great, when you get down to it. I don't have any social placement here. Back home I could follow something like this to its source, because I knew people from both sides of the city. I've busted all kinds of rings-drugs, underage prostitution, weapons-because I could root out who was who on the top rung. Hell, half the time it'd end up being some pillar of society. You wouldn't believe what people get up to-" he stopped himself, recalling Tony's account of Obadiah. "Well, maybe you would. But here I don't have the contacts to trace this. The names mean nothing to me. I can't tear out the roots of the thing." He took a slug of coffee, wincing at the heat. "And this is one small branch of God knows what."

"Yeah, but what're you following? Coke ring?"

Bruce nodded. "How many are there in a town this big? Several? Do they all connect at some point? Put an end to it and another round of it could take its place in a day. And that's after months of work. There's too many points of entry. At best I'm just beating up random scumbags." He lapsed into silence, hunched over his plate.

Tony scraped up the last of his meal and finally asked, "But what about Lestat? Dracula? Whoever? The whole point is to draw his attention, anyway, right?"

Bruce stopped chewing, his gaze drifting sideways for a minute. "I thought I saw something for just a second, while I was on the bike. Then it was gone, but I felt like I was being watched. For a minute I thought it might be you."

"Nah. I'm too loud to miss. Besides, you can take care of yourself." He busily focused on rearranging toast crumbs on his plate. When he finished, Bruce was still looking at him, unwavering.

"About that," Bruce said. "You thought I wouldn't find that bug in the cowl?"

"Jarvis's idea," said Tony.

"Right," said Bruce, and rose to go upstairs. "I don't need a sitter. I work alone. I understand you're trying to help. But when I do this, it doesn't involve other people. Not like when I flew with you. You can't help me any more than you can _be_ me." He left and went to shower and sleep.

Tony stared across at the empty seat for a while, rebuffed. It was forbidden to discuss things any further, that much was obvious. He hated being held at arm's length all of a sudden, like a nuisance. He wanted to help. (_Especially after getting rescued on your own mission_, he thought, and pride made him suppress it almost immediately.) And yet he'd been handled like a meddling relative.

He suspected there were a lot of people back in Gotham who felt the same way after getting too close to Bruce.

"Well excuse me for caring, asshole," he muttered under his breath, and drank the last of his coffee.


	16. Chapter 16

**16.**

**The Hunt Yields Prey**

Three nights later, Morlun found Bruce and one of them almost died.

Bruce had gotten further up the chain, all the way to a penthouse in Bunker Hill. The man who hung, squirming, by his ankles, was screaming and crying and ready to go live in a Third World hellhole, feeding crippled orphans and living on scraps, if he could only get free and set his feet on solid ground again. Or at least on his balcony.

One George Artibei was the main distributor, who lived like exiled royalty and had begun, of late, to sample his own merchandise. Bruce was doing him a favor, really; Artibei's carelessness ensured that sooner or later he'd be hanging from his own balcony on someone's say-so, and any other someone would likely not mind letting go.

A small craft was set to come into Los Angeles Harbor later in the week, theoretically from a pleasure jaunt to Santa Barbara, in actuality from much further down the coast, across the border. The shipment had worked its way from South America, from private yacht to private yacht, carefully avoiding detection. The slow, cautious method made up for itself in profit: the cocaine's quality was almost lethally pure. Cut and cut again, it was an obscene amount of money in powdered form.

"Please! Please! For God's sake!" screamed Artibei, and then vomited. The luxury and privacy of his penthouse insured the neighbors were too far down and away to hear him. He keened and struggled involuntarily. Bruce let him slip, just a little.

"How can you get it past inspection?" he growled. He knew the answer already; it was George's unswerving compliance that mattered.

"I've got a man in the harbormaster's office!" he cried. "More than one! They get money every time a shipment comes in!"

"Who?" he asked.

"They have their own connections," sobbed Artibei. "They'll have me killed if I name them." One of his slippers fell off and tumbled softly, inexorably to the pavement. His eyes followed its descent as he trembled.

"Please," Artibei gasped weakly. "Please." He closed his eyes and heaved another dry, empty sob.

"_Give me names or I let go_," said Bruce, and let the other man slip just an inch more. George startled and began wriggling with renewed terror.

"OK! OK! The first one is-"

Bruce's arm, solid as a tree trunk with muscle, powerful enough to hold a struggling, full-grown man at length, covered in armor, suddenly snapped to one side from an unseen impact like a reed in a strong wind. George was knocked from his grip and flew out and to the side, screaming on the way down.

Someone in an absurdly elegant frock coat leaned over the railing and smiled in a parody of polite interest. "Poor little man! Not much to him, was there? I suppose we'll find out _how_ much when he lands."

Bruce only had time to react, not to understand. He threw himself over the side and plummeted after Artibei. When he reached the other man, he grabbed Artibei close and drew the grappling gun from his belt. Firing it, he caught a lower balcony's railing with the hook, swinging into the impact to keep from tearing his arm off or dropping the distributor. He flicked a switch and the line reeled them back in.

Someone in a frock coat was waiting for them on the lower balcony as well.

"I've never had such a good time hunting my prey," said the man, whose dark hair waved in the night breeze. His eyes appeared to be completely red, which was impossible. "Such purity of purpose is hard to come by, but it sweetens the feast like nothing else."

Bruce realized several things at once, the first of them being that he'd finally found his main prize. Secondly, he knew he'd have to get Artibei out of immediate danger, no matter how much he deserved to fall. He snapped his fist into the balcony apartment's sliding door and shoved George through it as soon as the glass shattered. With any luck he wouldn't suffer any major cuts, and if he did, he'd still be able to call for help himself.

He'd have to. Bruce also realized he'd be very, very busy for a while.

He leaped out into the air once again and fired the gun, this time catching the edge of the roof. Daytime research had yielded the knowledge that it, while prime real estate, was currently empty and up for bid, for which he was grateful now. He'd need to leave any civilians out of casualty range. He landed in a tight crouch and reeled the line back in a second time.

"Oh, well," said a deep, silky voice behind him. "I suppose you'll want to make some heroic last stand. Many of them do."

Bruce whipped around and fired the gun a third time, aiming for the voice. He saw coattails against the skyline light and then nothing. For the first time he began to believe in his opponent's supernatural ability.

"I can move faster than you can hit me, so you really needn't bother," said Morlun, now to his left. Bruce reeled the line in again, spinning to catch Morlun with the hook as it retracted. It hit nothing but air and finally snicked back into place at the gun's mouth. He put it back on his belt and drew out two shuriken.

"Interesting design," said a voice over his right shoulder. "Modified from the Japanese, perhaps? I seldom visit the Orient."

Bruce twisted and drove his now-bladed fist behind him, catching air again. He swore. He'd lost the names of two people he could have leaned on and then turned in. Never mind that this was an alien city in another universe; he did his true work as surely as if it were Gotham.

"Continue, if you like," said Morlun again. His voice seemed to come from several directions at once, ghostly in its echoing effect. "You can keep on until you wear yourself out, and then die with honor. Or surrender now, which would save us both a lot of trouble. I promise to tell everyone you went out like a true warrior, if it makes you feel any better. Although"-and here the voice was disgustingly, amusedly intimate-"really, you're nothing but food."

He appeared again, about thirty feet away. Bruce registered him this time: tall, elegantly slender but not effete, pale skin, dark hair, and eyes that were indeed red. His clothes could have been stolen from Lord Byron's closet.

The shuriken were on their way almost before Bruce's eyes could focus. Morlun flicked them casually aside like gnats. A distant tinking noise marked their resting place. The vampire smiled. "I think you've been apprised of me, yes? You don't react like most of my dinners have. And so clever, darting here and there, just like a bat. You're almost too good to devour. Why don't you catch your breath, and I'll tell you a story."

Bruce reached for his belt again. Another blur, and Morlun stood before him, his long, pale hands reaching for Bruce's waist. "I think perhaps we'll just take distraction out of your way," said the vampire with another skin-crawlingly intimate smile, and then he was standing in the same spot thirty feet away, this time holding the suit's utility belt.

"Now, where was I?" he asked. "Ah,yes. No, no, stay put. Stay put," he said, his voice now much more animal, as Bruce made a move in his direction, "or I'll go find the charming gentleman you were having your outdoor tea party with and snap his neck. Yes," he smiled again, his tone growing civilized once more, "you'll stay put now, won't you? It's acceptable for you to threaten them, but not for me to do it. That's your weakness."

"I threaten. I don't kill."

"An affectation I have no use for. Do you bargain with the cattle you eat? Why should I? But never mind. The story's the thing."

The vampire settled into his stance as if curling into a comfortable chair. "My brothers and I, for centuries untold, fed on the energy of living things. Animals are pale and almost worthless. Humans are better, although still weak stuff for our appetites.

"But we discovered that the true spiritual essence of animals-the totems, the archetypes-when drawn down into a human, fused into something much stronger and truer than the gross bodily elements had been, separately. What a revelation! To drink tepid water for years and finally discover the headiest of wines in your cup!

"We were fair; when we could not destroy each other for the right to drain the world, we divided it up. Each of us took a continent, with the understanding that siblings should be invited to visit every few centuries or so, as was only proper in a family. Some times when we visited, we tried to obliterate our host-brother and take his hunting-grounds. Seldom did we succeed. Our need to kill was woven into our love for each other, and we had no apologies for our treachery. As your kind must die, ours must fight for supremacy.

"I was given North America, although then it was a nameless paradise. Asia turned, in many places, early from the oldest ways and became refined in its spiritual subtlety; dark and bloody totems faded quickly there. Europe embraced logic all too soon when its light entered Greece and was spread by the Romans, mad for empire, and the ways of the caves and drums by firelight were wiped out. Even the Vikings, whose berserker blood was ice wine when drawn in their full battle fury, became meek and contrite.

"Here, though, ah! Endless tribes who knew nor cared of anything that did not follow the rhythms of the earth and her seasons, each with at least one shaman who drew animal spirits into himself as easy as breath into his lungs. Or hers; I never cared much for the sex of the vessel so much as its contents. I still remember a young medicine woman in training, who embodied the hawk totem of her people so well I felt myself borne aloft on her dying breath...

"And then my brothers in Europe told me my vast supply of food would soon be thinned. The hateful need to innovate and invent, and its attendant desire to expand borders, drew the Europeans here, to slaughter and steal land. No one wept more for the natives' plight than I! I shared it, did I not?

"Now I pick and dig carefully, hiding. I live between feedings like a stray dog. My brother who inherited Australia has it much the same, all that aboriginal potency reduced by colonialism. South America is weakened, although still better than I'd expected, and likewise Africa. I envy the brothers who drew those lots! I'd challenge them for hunting rights, but I am so weakened that they'd kill me all too easily.

"In this past century, though, a newer, stronger sort of creature arose, more delicious than anything I have ever tasted, if rarer. The totem spirits changed, shifted, manifested more powerfully but in fewer of your kind. They reestablished themselves, appearing in colorful guises, protecting and guiding mortals just as before.

"I hope to feed from them, one at a time, until I am strong enough to challenge all my brothers, slay them, and have the world to myself. One of them told me of an African king who stalks his enemies in the auspice of a great black cat...I can hardly wait to enjoy him." Morlun's gaze was unfocused, like a man hearing a beloved waltz played in another room.

During this speech, Bruce had let his hands hang by his side and carefully, almost imperceptibly, worked two fingers into a small pocket at the edge of his cape. A round, flat object met his touch. He waited, still as a statue.

Morlun looked back up at Bruce and smiled carnivorously again. "I bore you, I imagine. But a man grows tired of having no company through the long centuries."

"You're not a man," said Bruce. "You don't deserve to make the comparison. You're a playground bully with an unnatural advantage."

"Banter is not your forte," said Morlun fondly. "I'd tell you to stick to your cunning little gadgets, but after tonight you won't have to worry about it either way." He looked at the utility belt in his hands, checking pockets, frowning thoughtfully at the contents. From one he drew a bulb of garlic and pealed into laughter.

"How amusing! Will I find holy water next, or a crucifix? They only work for a man of faith if at all, or so I'm told. Are you one of those? Or do you only have faith in your own skills, such as they are?"

"Mostly," said Bruce, "I have faith in my enemies' hubris. So far I've been right."

"Ah, but I'm not your enemy, only your better." He finished inspecting the belt's compartments and looked at the round buckle, which curled in on itself to a point. He frowned harder and picked at it with one long, pallid nail. Unable to open it, he drew it up to his eyes, squinting slightly in concentration.

Bruce snapped his thumb against the fingers in his cape, the remote-control device caught between them.

On the buckle, the central compartment popped open and a broad-range UV light of almost laser-like intensity hit Morlun in the face.

He hissed and jerked his head to one side. Bruce tensed and took a running step forward.

Morlun was there to meet him, laughing.

"Oh, I almost can't bring myself to feed now! You're not the best I've met but you are the funniest. Did you believe everything you heard in nursery tales? Sunlight hurts me no more than it does you. I'm only out at night because you are, my prey."

Bruce yelled in rage and threw a punch that had no hope of connecting. Morlun danced back, still laughing. "I may keep your toy as a memento. I do like the light it gives."

"How about ithis/i light?" came a question from overhead, and two beams of cold white energy slammed down into the vampire and knocked him backwards. Tony hovered there in the suit, radiating smug triumph. "You might need a second taste to make up your mind." He blasted Morlun again, who had lost all speed and grace, scrabbling weakly away from Tony. Bruce's belt lay some distance from him now.

Bruce slid sideways over the roof and picked it up, clipping it back on. "Don't let up on him," he said. "And I have unfinshed business downstairs." He jumped from the roof, hook already set, and unspooled his way to the broken apartment door, leaving Morlun's fate to Tony.

He was bruised and deeply upset. There'd never been an enemy in Gotham the equal of Morlun. He cursed himself for being unprepared, but what else could he have done? Even Strange had admitted to knowing of no weakness, magical or otherwise, the vampire possessed. His last would-be victim had burned Morlun with radiation, a risk too high for Bruce to consider, especially in the possible vicinity of civilians.

The apartment was unfurnished and still dark; no one had heard the crash, or were afraid to investigate. Artibei lay on the floor, passed out. A cursory check revealed no major cuts and little blood; with a penlight Bruce ascertained no major head injury either. He'd have to wake his contact up for a chat, though.

Dragging Artibei to the bathroom, he took a bare moment to reflect on Morlun's power. He'd figure out later how Tony had found him. He was angry that all his planning came to nothing, and sick at the thought of his ineffectiveness. Strange had been wrong. Bruce was virtually powerless; Morlun could be taken by one of this world's champions easily enough, and Gotham need not have been left without its defender, as weak as that one turned out to be.

He slammed Artibei into the bathtub and turned the cold water on, full blast. The distributor's eyes fluttered and then opened wide as he sputtered and waved his hands. Bruce cut the water off again and grabbed a handful of Artibei's robe.

"The names," he said. "And be glad I put you in here instead of on the pavement."

Five minutes later he left Artibei, sopping wet and passed out again, and grappled up to the roof a final time. Tony stood in the center, alone, looking around.

"Oh, there you are," he said. "Everything OK?"

"I got what I came for. Where's the leech?"

"I vaporized him," said Tony, and hesitated slightly before finishing. "I'm pretty sure."

"What do you mean, you're pretty sure?"

"I blasted him again and again, and then he wasn't there anymore. But there's a black spot on the roof where he was lying." He pointed. "I don't know what the hell else he could have done; I was watching him the whole time."

Bruce looked at the spot and took a forensic sample carefully. He searched the rooftop, ready to hear an unctuous voice behind or beside him, but nothing happened. They were alone.

Tony shrugged. "If he's not dead, he isn't gonna try out for the Lakers anytime soon, either. Personally, I think he's a wisp of smoke after that much repulsor action. Jesus!" He laughed raggedly and started to rub his face with one hand before remembering he was still in armor. "We fought a ivampire/i. Only in L.A."

"How did you find me?" Bruce demanded.

"Another sensor in your armor and no, I'm not telling you where. You ready to go home?"

Bruce looked at him for a long time. "I was ready when I got here. I didn't have a choice, remember?"

"You're just pissed I saved you. When you're finished being emo about your untimely rescue, think what I must have felt like in Dhamiq, alright?" He paused. Bruce continued to glare silently at him. "God, you're an asshole. Breakfast in half an hour." He turned and blasted up into the sky.

Bruce made his way down, got the bike, and guided it back to Malibu. His eyes were too dry and his body ached, but the whole way home he never felt as if he were being watched. Something in his gut told him he was still hated, though. Or maybe he was just tired and wired and paranoid.

When he went to bed that morning, he drowned himself in soft sheets and slept like the dead for hours.


	17. Chapter 17

**17.**

**Friends Don't Let Friends**

Bruce hunched over the workshop's draft table, sketching new modifications to his costume, particularly the gloves. A mug of coffee grew cold next to him.

"Jarvis, can you see what I need you to do here?" he asked.

"Mr. Stark would never approve," sniffed Jarvis.

Bruce leaned over to a keyboard and rapidly tapped away at it for a few seconds, then returned to the sketches. "He _did_ approve it," said Bruce. "Check your records."

There was a pause. "So I see."

"He also wants this done as soon as possible, and not to be bothered with it again."

"Unlike him," said Jarvis. "He's a bit of a perfectionist."

"We had a falling out," said Bruce. "He'd rather not handle anything related to me just yet." Amazing, the fact that he was explaining this to a computer. Well, an AI, one designed to observe human behavior and synthesize this knowledge into logical outcomes, but still a computer. One that could be tricked and lied to.

It pained him to think how much truth was woven into his explanation, though. He'd deal with it later. "How much time will it take?"

"Probably a few hours. It's not nearly so taxing as building Mr. Stark's suits. When is your next outing scheduled?"

"Tonight." He put down the pencil and knocked back a swig of coffee, grimacing at its tepid bitterness. "Ready by nine o'clock or so?"

"Certainly, Mr. Wayne." Then Jarvis fell silent and several automated components in the workshop came to life. Bruce slipped away from the table and went upstairs.

He scrounged lunch from the kitchen, ate over the sink, and then walked into the living room, the same one where he'd almost been shot by S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and then rescued by Pepper. Tony sat on the couch, his feet braced against the coffee table, fiddling with a laptop, surrounded by small, unidentifiable bits of gadgetry that looked like they'd been stolen from NASA. He picked up one and then another with absentminded confidence.

He also didn't look up or acknowledge Bruce's presence. Except for the hardening of lines around his eyes and mouth, which made the room's temperature drop about ten degrees.

Bruce moved closer and coughed. Tony didn't look up.

Bruce moved closer still and cleared his throat. Tony's fingers jabbed the keys harder, and now his gaze at the screen turned into a glare.

Bruce took one more step forward. He opened his mouth to speak, but Tony exploded into motion, shoving the laptop away and leaping to his feet, scattering a couple of the gadgets as he did so.

"What the hell do you want?" asked Tony. "Let me guess. You've decided to camp out on the beach because staying under my roof is too much dependence for you? Or maybe you wanted to tell me to go fuck myself again in case I forgot?"

Long pause. Bruce held up his hands, a gesture which felt too stagey. He dropped them again and said simply, "I deserved that. I was wrong." And then, after another pause, "I'm sorry."

"You know, you'd have died back there if I hadn't shown up. He wasn't gonna back down. Except I"-Tony's confidence wobbled a little-"killed him. And he'd have killed you first." Tony had been saving up his anger and had to spend it before he could regain equilibrium.

He thought about what he planned to do tonight. It might be wiser to alienate Tony, strike a killing blow to his good will, make him so angry he's never try to follow Bruce again. Except he already knew Tony had too much genuine hero in him to do that, even if he hated Bruce. He'd do everything possible to get involved.

All the muscles he'd tensed up planning for the coming night relaxed, and he was weary now, and wanted it to be over. Even the usual dark pleasure of knowing his will would be imposed on the unwitting guilty was absent. He wanted to sleep and let the world pass him by. He sat down and rested his head in his hands, then leaned back into the sofa cushions.

"You're right," he said, looking up at Tony. "He would have. I'd be dead. Thank you." He paused. "I called Strange, by the way."

"You-how?" He stared at Bruce as if he might start levitating or channeling the dead.

"He's in the Manhattan phone directory." Bruce laughed raggedly. "I called him and asked him about Morlun."

"And?" Tony sat down.

"He can't sense anything, but he'd thought Morlun was dead before and been wrong. So that's about where I was anyway. And he didn't know of any other means to destroy him. I told him in detail what happened the other night. He didn't have any suggestions. And then he put the phone aside for a minute and said, 'Wanda wants to speak to you'."

The words had made Bruce's skin rise to gooseflesh when he heard them and now it did the same to him and Tony both when he repeated them. They looked at each other for a beat. Then Bruce continued.

"She fumbled for the phone a minute and then came on. His connection was a little fuzzy-I imagine a man who concerns himself with crystal balls and magic mirrors isn't too interested in modern technology-but she sounded clear as a bell. Like she was standing next to me. I didn't like it. She said, 'Help may come from somewhere above and within. You are a marked man. But not the only one.' It was like-like something else was talking to me _through_ her. Then I guess she took the phone away for a minute and came back to me. This time she sounded a little crackly, the way he had. She said, 'I wish you the best of luck, Mr. Wayne.' Then she blew me a kiss. It was weird. I almost _felt_ it, and it was warm, and then she went away. Strange said goodbye and that was it."

Tony absorbed this for a minute. "I'm starting to really wish I'd never met any of these people."

"Yeah, well," said Bruce, "There's a lot of that going around."

"Did you get anything from the stuff you scraped off the rooftop?"

Bruce shook his head. "Carbon. Could have been him, his clothes, or a piece of charcoal. Nothing conclusive."

A few moments passed. Finally Tony looked at him and said, "I'm coming tonight. I'll keep my distance because it'll tip off the drug runners you're supposed to be going after. But I'm keeping the sensor on. If anything funny happens, I'm there."

Bruce hesitated, then nodded. "OK." He stood up. "I'm going to sleep for a while. If any immortals show up, I'm indisposed."

After a precious few hours' respite, Bruce awakened at sundown and readied himself for the night's activity. Vampire or not, a boatful of cocaine was making its way into the harbor and he had every intention of seeing justice done to everyone involved.

But first he had to betray Tony. It might very well sever their patched-up friendship, and he thought twice about his plans; but then he recalled the charred streaks on the rooftop, the monumental power of a being that could withstand them, and steeled himself.

Tony waited in the living room, still clicking away on his laptop. "You all rested up, princess?"

Bruce snorted. "You finished looking at porn?" He made for the kitchen, got two mugs, and poured fresh coffee into both, and a few drops of clear liquid into one. He handed it to Tony, who gulped half in one go and made prepatory gestures towards finishing up.

"Mmm. Good stuff. You ever try that _luwak_ coffee?" he asked Bruce, making a face. "They grow it in Indonesia. There's a civet cat that eats it. They've got specially-trained harvesters who go into the jungle and pick the beans out of its shit and wash it off. Some digestive enzyme it has is supposed to alter the taste. Makes it ten times better. Goes for about $400 a pound."

Bruce nodded, watching Tony closely. "Tastes like waterlogged bamboo finished with paper mill fumes. Everything that expensive isn't automatically good. Although I guess it helps to be rich if you're ever going to find out firsthand."

Tony left the laptop open and set it on the table. "Yeah. I remember this escort in Sweden, supposed to be the very best-" In his usual fashion, he got distracted by himself and made it quite a way into the story before breaking off abruptly. "You want to get ready or what? It's not exactly like you to get sidetracked..." he trailed off. "Jesus, I feel...just...like..." His gaze softened. He blinked twice, slowly, dazed as a newly-hatched chick. "What the hell?" He looked up at Bruce, puzzled.

The determined set of Bruce's jaw, combined with the sheepish cast in his gaze, told Tony what he needed to know. His own gaze sharpened momentarily. His face flushed red and on a surge of adrenaline he managed to spit out, "You son of a _bitch_, younnhhhh" before he fell back onto the couch as the drug he'd ingested did its work. Bruce arranged him comfortably (how recently Tony had done the same for him, he realized, and in doing so felt a stab of shame), put a pillow under Tony's head, and left for the workshop.

He wasn't there to see Tony struggle to consciousness for a few more seconds, look around groggily, and hit a key on his laptop before passing out again, sagging halfway off the couch, which was how Pepper would find him almost an hour later.

By then, however, Bruce have enough to worry about on his own.


	18. Chapter 18

**18.**

**The Hunt Draws To A Close**

The looks on their faces were priceless to Bruce. One minute they were unloading several neatly-wrapped kilos of cocaine from a small pleasure craft to an SUV; the next, they were frozen in the glare of the bike's powerful, wide-arc magnesium light, eyes wide and mouths agape.

It didn't last, of course. Half of them scrambled into the automobile and the the other half pulled out guns and leaped onto the boat, firing at the light. By then he'd already scattered caltrops in front of the tires and moved away from the bike.

The meeting place was a neglected marina in the West Channel; under reconstruction and indifferently lit and off-limits to anyone with legitimate reason to be in the area. Unless you had a pass from the Harbormaster's Office.

He made a sideways dash into the SUV as the tires shredded and tied the shouting driver to her seat, plucking the keys from the ignition. Her passengers he subdued with mace (a particular twitch of his nose brought the nasal filters into play, a modification he'd have to work on back home), hogtied, and then rolled back out. Getting to the boat without being shot was the hard part, but he liked the hard part in any operation best of all.

Gathering up into one powerful coil of muscle, he sprang across the distance and aimed for a space just inside the boat's prow. He never made it.

A white streak from his right-where exactly had it come from? The water? The dock? A shadow?-plowed into him and took him back again. He landed on the dock with a heavy _whoof_ of breath and then sat up.

The volley of bullets had ceased. The men who fired on him hung limply over the side of the vessel, throats gaping and bloody. A gun fell from someone's hand and splashed into the water as he watched. From belowdecks came a strangled scream and a thud. Something flickered past his vision, closer, and then he was hoisted to his feet from behind. A voice hissed in his ear.

"My most persistent and useful of prey. I almost sought you out myself. But I'm much happier that you came to me, instead."

Bruce shot an arm back. It was the beginning of a maneuver that would cripple a nerve cluster in a normal opponent's leg, but his hand met empty air. The space three feet ahead of him shimmered slightly as his vision caught up to the being who stopped there. Morlun. Of course.

Bruce wasted no time. He flexed his fingers in a quick pattern and raised both hands to face the vampire. Irises of light expanded on his palms and fired repulsor waves at his enemy.

The energy slammed into Morlun and knocked him back a foot, staggering. He screeched and covered his face with one arm.

Bruce kept the blast up. The repulsors in his gloves were wired to an arc reactor in his belt and he had a spare on the bike. Thank God Tony had made more than one. Thank God, for that matter, he'd been nosy enough to poke around and figure out how to jerry-rig himself up with Jarvis's help.

Morlun kept twisting and writhing and covering himself ineffectively with his hands. The one-sided battle kept on for a minute or two, in which time Bruce began to feel more and more uneasy. The vampire showed no outward ill effects despite his flamboyant display of pain, and made no effort to leave. Was that a faint smile-?

"Need some help?" Tony hovered into view from over his shoulder and landed next to him with a clang. "I guess I should apologize, seeing as how I overslept and all." His voice was metal etched with acid.

"Stay the hell away," said Bruce tonelessly. "I did-"

"Funny thing, my company expanding the medical technology division," continued Tony. "You would not _believe_ the smart drugs we've developed. Stuff that's guaranteed to neutralize sedatives in five minutes flat. No aftereffects worse than a headache. Makes you even perkier than before you were knocked out. I should show you the formula."

"Yes, well," said Bruce. "I'm a little busy right now. If-"

"Why don't I just finish up for you," said Tony, "and then we can go discuss how very foolish it is to play hero alone in my town."

"Tony! Don't-"

Tony crossed over to Morlun, who still shrieked and tried to turn away. "Nice try, Bela Lugosi," said Tony, and then, in a more businesslike voice, "Divert power to chest."

The suit hummed as peripheral energy drained from its extremes and condensed behind the lens protecting the arc reactor. Tony squared his shoulders and braced himself for the blast's kickback. "GO," he said, and two things happened at once.

The beam, huge, blinding, shot out of the suit, and Morlun stopped his pantomime of distress, smiled vulpinely, and plunged his hand forward to cover the center of Tony's chestplate.

"At last," he said.


	19. Chapter 19

**19.**

**Deus Ex Machina, Deus Ex Vacuus Machina**

Tony screamed. The pain was unbelievable. He wasn't touched directly by Morlun's hand, but something far worse was happening; his very essence was being drawn out through the medium of his suit and the arc reactor. He staggered halfway around and would have fallen over if Morlun's grip weren't so insistent.

The vampire's face, lit by the indifferent brilliance, relaxed into pleasure. His ecstasy was finer than any mere sexual license could ever produce; it was the pure, obscene joy of a feeding parasite overpowering its host, erasing it from the world at its leisure. Bruce hadn't hurt Morlun at all with the repulsor blasts. He'd strengthened him.

"You wanted _me_," he shouted at Morlun. "So come get me and leave him alone! I'm the totem! I'm the one you're after!" He lunged at Morlun and just as suddenly found himself pushed back to where he'd started. Morlun laughed dismissively over his shoulder.

"I did want you. Then I found what a fool I'd been the minute I met your tin soldier. This, _this_ is what I wanted, what I needed, all along. Let my brothers drain the dregs of animal-men on the filthy remains of a dying planet! The new totem is not man's spirit wed to rude beasts. It is man's spirit joined to his machines."

He squeezed his hand and relaxed for a moment, and the arc reactor's energy feed slowed down to a regular, pulsing rhythm. The rhythm of, say, a human heartbeat.

"One day man will leave this polluted world behind and build clean palaces among the stars, and I shall mount the heavens with him. All I need is the soul of one who made himself a heart of metal. After I consume him, the fires of technology will dance along my nerves, light my brain up with the cold logic of a thousand sciences! In the last age I was a monster. In the next one I shall be a _god_."

He threw his head back in almost orgasmic joy. The drain of energy from Tony's suit visibly amped up. Tony bucked, attempting futilely to escape.

A small, winged shape fluttered for a second across the face of the moon and then back into obscurity.

Bruce bellowed with rage and charged Morlun again with all his strength. He strove simply to make contact, to hurt and maim; he was beyond tactics or reason.

Morlun's arm pistoned out and caught his midsection, crumpling the armor there. The wind left his lungs and he flew backwards once more, stunned by the impact and the blast of repulsor energy that enveloped the vampire in a force field.

Time slowed. He fell. His vision darkened and he hit the boards of the dock and there was splintering, the sound of wood cracking and shattering, as if rotted from too many seasons untended. He fell. The smell of not water but dankness, stone and moss enclosed for years, filled his nose. He fell. A round light shone above him, perhaps the moon or perhaps not, receding as he traveled further down. He fell. There was something hard at the bottom, waiting to break part of him, he knew without knowing. He fell. There was/would be the sound of living, leathery things, and then the screech and the awful _touch_ of them, but now it didn't seem so terribly bad that he might be touched by those things, better than falling and and breaking and seeing the man above die by inches and he _fell_-

Something bore him up. He understood the exchange on a level beneath words or logic. There was a moment when he could consent or refuse and he consented, some aspect of Bruce moving aside for another, ancient self. It saw through his eyes, heard through his ears, smelled through his nose. It raised him up, up, up.

He felt his own wings, his own fur, which he had always had and never known about. He tasted the crunch and death of small, succulent creatures on his breath. This other self distilled information into sharp clarity: the shape and lap of each wave of the harbor; the nicks and dents on the boat's fiberglass side and the cooling tick of the van's metal; every tiny insect that swooped and dove around the streetlamps above; the subtle flicker of energy haloing Morlun and Tony. Then that older self bridged the gap between itself and Bruce, using language now, for the first time.

_You have called me and I have come. Why did you seek me out, little drinker of magics?_

Morlun turned away from Tony, still crackling with light. The arc reactor's glow was wan, almost grayish, as if unclean. Tony let out a weak cry turned metallic through the helmet's filters. Slowly he sank to one knee.

"You, finally, beastling? Go away. I have no use for your kind anymore." He turned back to Tony.

_What have you found to replace your usual feast, pale moth? Light? Metal? Machinery? The craft of hairless apes who came long after I did?_

Morlun snarled and looked at his interrogator again. "I have found a new source, and I will slay your vessel when my god-making is finished, and you with it if you stay. Your power is nothing. Your time is over. What do I have to fear from you?"

_Before the coming of man, I waited each day for darkness to fall, that I might hunt. With every turn of the earth did it come. Now the hairless apes have risen on two legs and tamed fire, and made eternal illumination even in the heart of night. And still the darkness falls, and still I hunt. For all their learning they cannot stop the darkness from falling. For all their learning they cannot stop me from hunting, and I am still a terror in the night to them. Do you think you can cast me aside so easily?_

Tony was on his back now. He lifted his head weakly. Close by was the white icon of Morlun, glowing intolerably. Further on was something shadowy and indistinct, crowned with two great points, and lit by eyes that burned like coals. The breeze blowing from it brought animal smells: the charnel-house stink of blood and something else; something musky and rank and secretive.

He had no strength and barely any consciousness left, but at the sight of this great murky apparition every nerve in his body screamed at him to get away. He twitched a hand and could move no further.

Morlun, sated with potency, grew enraged and spun away from Tony, taking a step toward his opponent. He slashed an arm dismissively. "I don't need you, fool! I don't want you! Go away!"

The shadow stirred, shifted closer.

_You may speak to the light presently. But you summoned the darkness first, and you must answer to it._

Vast, tenebrous wings unfolded, blotting out the light of city and stars.

_You once wished to drink my power, arrogant mosquito? Very well, then. Let us see how much you can hold before you burst._

Tony saw the wings snap shut, the vampire's pallor swallowed up in them like a candle flame, extinguished.

A faint, distant scream, liquid noises that turned Tony's stomach, a horrible crunch, and then he knew no more.


	20. Chapter 20

**20.**

**Artificial Resuscitation**

Bruce's head swam for a few seconds; then he staggered backwards and caught himself before he fell. His vision snapped back. His breath carried a faint hint of something vile.

The night was clear and bright and calm.

The boat bobbed quietly, further out now, unanchored. One of the men had fallen over the side, leaving a gory smear down to the waterline. The people in the van didn't make a peep, if they were still awake or alive.

The dock was whole, unsplintered. Unstained.

He might have stared dazedly at the moon for much longer if he hadn't heard a moth dive against something with a metallic _tink_. Tony's suit.

Bruce went to Tony and looked into the chestplate. The arc reactor's glow was silvery now instead of gray but faint, pulsing slowly, ever more slowly, and growing weaker. He ran to the bike and grabbed the spare he'd brought, but pulling and tugging on the suit didn't give him any access. It was designed to be put on and taken off by complex machines, not an increasingly frantic human wearing gloves.

He tried raising Jarvis on the communications system but got nothing. Finally, desperate, he punched with all his might at the lens on Tony's chestplate, praying that no shards of it would drive into Tony's heart. His fist, reinforced with built-in brass knuckles and a kevlar overlay, bounced off like cheap rubber. He fiddled with the lock mechanism on either side of the lens and got it to move slightly, but nothing else happened. He hammered it again with his fist and it slipped, just a bit. He coaxed it further and finally was able to pry the lens off, digging his fingers under and tugging so hard that the edge sliced through his gloves and cut his flesh, a pain he wouldn't feel until much, much later.

Tony had explained, over the course of living with Bruce, how the arc reactor fit into his chest and how Pepper had replaced it, digressing several times to speculate on whether the bra he'd glimpsed under her shirt was white or pale blue. Bruce tried to summon up the information, trying and failing one last time to reach Jarvis in hopes of being guided through the process.

He took his glove off and lifted the dying power source out, pulling up the cabling and disengaging it with one sharp tug. The gel compound it was coated in did indeed smell foul. He tossed it aside and heard it skid to the edge of the dock and then hit the water with a small splash.

Carefully, feeling his way, he plugged the new arc reactor in and eased it into its housing. It lit, but flickered like a bad fluorescent light. Then it came on.

Tony didn't stir. There was no way to take his pulse, or check his breathing. It might be impossible to reach anyone before it was too late.

The light was steady again but dim. Not just dim-it lacked something. Brilliance? Luminance?

_Vitality_. That was it. Like Morlun hadn't just drained a piece of machinery. Something was still missing. The wan light spilling from Tony's suit made the words _brain dead_ linger unpleasantly in his mind.

"Tony?" he asked, lifting the helmeted head. "Tony, can you hear me?"

Tony's limbs moved a little on their own but in a sickening way, like the nerve-action of a dead frog's legs in a laboratory. Then they stopped moving again.

Bruce felt small and lost. He'd defeated the vampire through means he'd never known existed-Wanda's prophecy come true-and now that other self was gone again, retreated. If something magical was needed to fix the arc reactor and being Tony back, he didn't know what it was, or how to access it. That other self took the magic with it when it left.

He leaned back with one arm, felt the lens of his glove's arc reactor scrape against the dock's wood, and said in a startled voice, "Oh." Of course.

Regloving his hand, Bruce cupped both palms over the weak arc reactor in Tony's armor like a man warming his hands over a campfire. He reflected for a moment that if this backfired and the energy ricocheted back out, he might end up blowing his own hands off. Then he braced himself and activated the reactor on his belt. Repulsor beams fired from his hands into the arc reactor protecting Tony's heart.

The suit jerked galvanically. Bruce thought he heard groaning from within but it might have just been the screech of metal.

He fired again and held steady in one long pulse, feeding energy back to the suit. A glow welled up from the weak arc reactor, spilled over, and enveloped Tony and then finally Bruce in a cocoon of light and power. The suit's hands moved, then its feet; then a rippling seemed to pass all over it and Bruce fed it all the energy he had.

The glow faded and died. Tony lay still.

Bruce waited. And waited. Tony didn't move.

He took off his cowl and dropped it next to Tony's body. The night breeze ruffled his hair. He walked to the end of the dock and sat down, dangling his legs over the water, like a boy. The tiny waves lapping toward him looked like thousands of nodding heads, agreeing _Yes, he's dead._

Two great energies had passed through and around him in the the space of a night and taken all of his own with them. He was too exhausted to feel anything, which was pleasant. The moon above was just the moon. The bats chasing mosquitoes overhead were just beasts, doing what beasts did. The water rolling in was just water, it nodded to him. Everything was flat and without greater meaning. He stared at nothing in particular for a long time.

A conjuring trick of men appeared around him, five of them, each pointing a pistol. "S.H.I.E.L.D.! Put your hands up!"

Fury, clad head-to-toe in night-ops black, strode over, waved them away. "Stand down, agents. Mr. Wayne?"

Bruce hauled himself to his feet. "Strange's vampire is dead. So is-Tony's...I was in the middle of a drug bust."

Fury nodded. "That we know about. Jarvis contacted us when he lost you. Some kind of energy overload in the area. Gave us lots of juicy intel about the cocaine trafficking on the ride out here. We'll fudge the necessary data and turn it over to the DEA's office." Then he looked up at the moon like he was trying to decide what kind of firearm would bring it down in one shot. "There was another energy flare in the area. Knocked out our ground surveillance equipment, or we'd have gotten here faster. Had to triangulate. I'm not asking about either incident. I suspect it'd take Strange to understand, anyway. I didn't go to bootcamp to wind up playing Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

He spun and snapped his fingers. "Get Stark loaded up and head straight for his workshop so we can get him out of that tin can. And have a medical team assembled and ready to go. Now!" He turned back to Bruce. "You're going separately but we're still checking you out for shock and possible trauma. You look like hell."

The cowl was sitting on a shelf in the unmarked black van-cum-ambulance. He obediently stripped down to his boxers and suffered an examination. They shone a light in his pupils, tested his reflexes, and took his pulse. They swabbed his cut hands and bandaged them up. He looked like a prizefighter who'd lost his last round ever.

It was easier to go blank. He was still exhausted. He looked at the inside of the vehicle without really seeing it, pictures drifting across his mind without any force of emotion: Pepper drinking soda, the outside of LAX gleaming in the Pacific light, the mirror in his guest bathroom unfolding for the first time like a silver lotus.

He was seized, then, by another image, one which held fast: a tiny corner of Wayne Manor's pantry, filled with sunlight in which motes of dust spun slowly. The corner with a rocking chair in it, its peeling paint a dark green: Alfred's resting spot for half an hour every afternoon. He could feel the wooden shelves against his back as if he leaned there, the gritty linoleum under his soles, smell the spicy sweetness of homemade chutney in glass jars vying with the acrid tang of dried herbs hanging from hooks; the perpetually gloomy, lonely spirit of the space cut by the homey odor of Alfred's tobacco tin and his immanent presence.

Bruce could think of nothing else, so vivid was the sensation of simply being there; but then the vehicle jounced and a tech's stethoscope bopped him in the face and startled him half out of his reverie. Feeling came back, so hard it hurt him. He wanted, more than he had wanted almost anything in his life, to be there, doing nothing except staring at the shelves and the dim windowpanes. Simple, animal comfort.

The desire and the pain of its frustration washed in and out with every wave of blood that pumped through his heart. He felt it without distraction or reason or understanding. He had no strength to plan his return home, if indeed he was ever _going_ home, nothing but pure unfettered longing.

"Are you alright?" asked one of the techs. He stared back with no comprehension. "Shock, for sure," said one of the others. They tried to make him lie down but he stayed sitting on the gurney. If he moved, he might lose the memory.

"Sir, if you'd just please-"

And then the explosion.


	21. Chapter 21

**21.**

**Leaving (Not On A Jet Plane)**

Bruce fiddled with his tie. It hung in wild tatters, the silk threads loose and frayed. His collar hung askew, his shirt ripped and bloodied. He looked as his shoe-only one, the other discarded-with genuine regret. The upper was separated from the sole in several places, his foot, barely covered by a shredded cashmere sock, visible through it. Not that he could see so well through the swelling around his eye. And of course even with a good shoe, he'd limp, now.

Miles of desert spooled out behind the Jeep, miles more ahead. He could be on the back of the moon. He could be on Mars. He sipped a bottled water and kept looking for signs of life.

"So. Guess we're about five miles away now." Fury said, opposite him. "In another hour, give or take, you'll be out of my life permanently." He seemed vastly pleased at the idea.

"You never know," said Bruce. "I could come back as someone else." He kept his gaze out the window. He was still tired, and also afraid. Mostly he wanted it to be over.

Fury frowned, tipped his head at Bruce as if asking him to repeat it, and then caught himself. He was still a little hard of hearing, but it would fade, and he was too proud to admit weakness. He'd been in the van that tore open, unlike Bruce, who'd been two vehicles behind him.

"I'm going to get Strange to make _sure_you don't come back." He laced his lands across his stomach and smiled up at the sun.

"Sorry I ruined your life, then," he said, with the form of anger but without any real heat. "I didn't ask for all this." He paused. "I'd still like to go hand-to-hand with you again. You'd be great to train with. I'm pretty sure it'd take me longer to pin you if we started on equal footing." He kept his face bland and savored Fury's angry glare. Things were coming to an end, anyway; what did it matter if he pissed the guy off now?

His real regret was not seeing Tony again. But things were what they were.

Eventually they slowed, turned off the highway, still surrounded by sere wilderness. A faint trail meandered along and they followed it carefully. Fury's driver took his time, taking care not to be seen. There would even be, Bruce had overheard, a carefully orchestrated broadcast delay from any satellite monitoring this stretch of desert, so that their actions could be caught and deleted from the record.

"Faked signal jam," he told one of his men. "Of course nobody else knows, so they have to assume there's something wrong with the satellite, run a diagnostic, it takes at least seven million of the military's budget to even think about it. Any private companies we can bribe, make any leaked reports sound like something only tinhats would buy. And all that to keep what we're doing to Mr. Wayne out of the public eye, because they'd never stand for it if they knew." He flicked a disdainful glance at his ragged passenger.

One chance, Bruce knew. They had probably once chance to do the job to him correctly. He had no idea what kind of pain and suffering would be involved if they screwed up. He contented himself with hoping it'd be over quickly.

They crested a hill and there, below, waited a small military envoy circled around an empty spot, a black limousine off to the side. Fury's men drove down and parked at the edge. Bruce was taken by two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, one at each arm, and firmly marched behind Fury to the envoy's center. As if he'd run. As if, for that matter, he had anywhere else to go, now that everything was finished.

"We've got him," called Fury. "Let's make this quick and painless, shall we?"

"Let's," said Bruce under his breath. His sleeve fluttered in the hot breeze. The agent to his right walked behind him and gave him a little push. Bruce staggered a little and then limped forward.

"Sorry about the bruises," said Fury, looking not the least sorry at all. "We had to distress you to make it look good."

"You didn't have to jump me," said Bruce.

"Well, three of my best agents are going to be in physical therapy for about six months, if that makes you feel any better. Hello, Doctor," he said, turning to the limousine. Doctor Strange climbed out, with Wanda sliding along after him. He was in his usual mystical regalia and she had donned some sort of red leather getup with a headdress. They looked surreal in this setting, but then, they'd look surreal anywhere.

Doctor Strange nodded to Fury and focused sharply on Bruce, a mathematician taking in a complicated, unsolved equation. Wanda smiled, tentatively, sympathetically. She was clearly glad to not be in his shoes.

"Get rid of him," said Fury, simply. "Get rid of him so I can go home and clean up the remnants of this whole mess."

The Doctor and Wanda nodded, then started to stretch their hands in Bruce's direction, concentrating their energies on him. They looked both cartoonish and menacing. Had they made similar gestures when they drew him into this world, before he'd ever met them? Something else he didn't know and now never would.

"I'm sorry to have to do this," said the Doctor quietly, as he began to shape something in the air with his hands. "I'll try to make your final moments here as peaceful as possible."

"Hold on a minute," said a weak but determined voice from the back of the limo, and after a minute, someone in a dark suit slowly unfolded at the door and the straightened up with the aid of a cane. Tony smiled at him. "What, no kiss goodbye?"

Bruce grinned wildly around the lump in his jaw. "I thought we were breaking up," he said.

Fury rolled his eye. "I thought you were still recovering at home," he said to Tony. "And we'd like to get the whole door-to-another-universe thing off the ground, if it doesn't inconvenience either of you too much."

When the explosion happened, Bruce's tenuous hold of his surroundings suddenly snapped back. The EMTs around him shouted and pressed to look out the windows as their ambulance screeched sideways to a halt. Something-a car, it turned out, driven by a man out for late-night ice cream who would be detained and debriefed for hours after-crunched into their side and a horn started blaring nonstop.

Bruce sprang up and wrenched the back door open, jumping out before anyone could grab him. He looked up, but he didn't have to look hard.

Arcing across the sky was a ball of pure white light. A scream, or something very like one, trailed after it. It streaked off its trajectory and tore around the sky, hurtling so low that more than once everyone ducked. S.H.I.E.L.D. agents ran to and fro, securing perimeters-a useless gesture, given that what they needed to contain most was airborne-and Bruce saw the ambulance up ahead that carried Tony's body.

The roof was tortured back into an elaborate metal flower, as if punched from within by a giant fist. Smoke rose from it, and the lone EMT who had guarded Tony was pulled out, limp and streaked with first-degree burn marks. Another EMT popped open a tube of salve and started applying it on him. The gurney was hot slivers of metal, melting into the vehicle's floor. The driver was walking outside in dazed circles, saying in an almost casual but very faint voice, "I tried really hard, you know, not to freak out just now," and then he sat down and accepted a blanket from an agent.

Bruce's fists curled up again of their own accord, his mouth pulling back into a crazy grin. "Oh Jesus," he breathed. "I think it worked. I think it really worked, Tony, I think-"

The white thing tore around the sky once more, now slowly siphoning off energy until it came to rest on the ground, not not white but red and gold and scorched. Tony, once more distinguishable, reached up and popped the helmet off. His hair stood out in every direction and his eyes bulged. Weaving slightly, he said, "Excuse me, that was rude. Can someone tell me what the hell just happened?" then promptly fell over.

Coulson, Fury, and Bruce got to him first. Tony's eyes were closed and his smile was roguish. He looked like he'd just gotten the best lay of his life.

"Is he still alive?" asked Fury, in the tone of an affronted hostess confronting a gatecrasher.

Coulson put two fingers on Tony's neck and then looked at Fury. "Well, he's got a good pulse. A little fast, but he's OK so far."

"What do you mean, 'OK'?" asked Fury.

Coulson's look was bleakly deferential. "Not dead."

Tony raised his head. "I would _kill_for a martini right now," he informed Coulson, and then laid it back down again carefully with a small moan. The EMTs converged on him and Bruce stood there, eyes watering, grinning and grinning into the flashing lights and confusion.

"You want a drink first?" Tony asked Bruce now. "I mean, Jesus, if there was ever a time for it..."

"I think you cleaned out the minibar, actually," said Pepper, scooting out to help hold Tony up. "Good thing you brought that cane."

"How are you?" asked Bruce.

"Better than you, from the looks of it," answered Tony. "I'm kinda weak, but I'm coming back, I guess. I really feel like I have jetlag, only deeper. I'm sort of replenishing...my spirit, but that sounds so New Agey. That's what it feels like, though."

Bruce nodded. "Yeah, well, just take it easy after I leave." He paused. "Come to think of it, why are you even here?"

"To see what sending someone across a universal convergence point looks like. Also to make sure it works, because I'd never get clearance to find out afterward if you made it through OK."

"Mr. Stark," said Fury carefully to no one in particular, "is being given a special liberty right now, in light of all that happened. Special Avenger team or not, this is very unorthodox. By all rights, nobody not involved in pulling it off should be here."

"Oh, we won't tell," Tony waved with dismissive cheer. "Besides, you have to show off all this talent to someone." He looked at Bruce. "So they beat you up and tore your clothes so when you get back, it looks like you wandered off from the crash, right? If these guys could wipe your memory, they probably would, you know."

"Nothing will ever make me forget this, believe me." He included Pepper briefly in this statement. She smiled back at him.

Fury coughed. Everyone looked at him. "Mr. Wayne will be going now," he said firmly.

"You ever think about staying?" asked Tony. He sipped at a water bottle Pepper handed him. "Because that repulsor-to-repulsor recharge move was pretty smart. Which sounds like an unnatural sex act now that I say it out loud. It just took longer than you thought it would. You'd be a great addition to this dog-and-pony show Nick's working on. Perfect black ops guy-you don't even exist in this world. Whattaya say, man?" He looked entreatingly at Fury, who turned away. Tony shrugged. "Ah, he'll come around. C'mon, Bruce, you're a good guy."

"That's why I have to go back." He offered Tony his hand. They locked gazes briefly in the same thought-_Yeah, so, nice meeting a guy from a different world and killing an immortal predator together and hey, the pizza was good, too, see you in the funny pages_-and then Tony surged forward and slammed an arm around Bruce.

"You end up here again, you know where to find me, dickhead. Now go before I smack you around myself."

Bruce laughed and then let go and the Doctor and Wanda started up again as he moved away from everyone else. The weird greenish cloud rose from nothing like ground mist, but this time, despite its eldritch aspect, it seemed welcoming.

After a minute it grew almost opaque. Things seen through it were shadowy and blurred. The Doctor gestured.

"It's ready when you are, Mr. Wayne. I can only hold this open for so long. It should open up near the crash, but not so near that anyone will see you re-enter your own world again."

Wanda tightened her brow, staring slightly into the middle distance. "I'm manipulating probability in your world as best I can," she said. "You should come out in an area much like this one, alone, but not too far from the crash site. It hasn't been quite as long in your world as it has in this one, but the rescuers will have gone. It's down to forensics now. You should find some..." she squinted. "...To the southwest of where you come through, about a mile, over-over another small hill. Go quickly, it's later there." She kept her focus on the ether but smiled for him. "I'm glad you're alright, Mr. Wayne. Now goodbye."

He turned one last time to wave at Tony. "Don't let anyone go rebuilding suits on you."

Tony's eyes popped. "You assho-"

Bruce stepped through. Green, then gold, then blackness, then nothing, and he was-


	22. Chapter 22

**22.**

**There And Back Again**

-in a stumbling run when he came back to himself again, and almost tripped and fell over a small stand of rocks. A warning rattle came from under it, and his adrenaline kicked in, brought him fully into the moment. He leaped back and gave the rocks a wide berth, then looked around to get his bearings. Southwest: ahead and to the left. The hill Wanda told him about loomed in the distance.

The trek was short, but felt much, much longer. Partly it was the heat, which parched him even though he'd had plenty of water to drink on the way to his destination, partly the way his own world looked exactly like the one he'd left behind and yet was subtly different to some submerged sense. He wondered how long it had been here, and a whole host of problems crowded in-had he been declared legally dead yet? Had there been a funeral? Had Gotham's criminals figured out they had a free pass from the Batman? Was Alfred-

Some combination of bodily stress and cognitive dissonance hit Bruce all at once and he bent over, hands on his knees, and vomited up that morning's breakfast and all the water. He stood hunched there, panting heavily. Presently he straightened up and now really did move like someone weak and disoriented, his energy suddenly and frighteningly gone.

From the top he could see a small crew of workers packing up at the end of the day, one or two large bits of fuselage still strewn along the ground. _I was in that_, he thought, and almost retched again. He marshaled himself to wave and tried yelling. A dry, feeble croak emerged. He tried again. "Hey! Hey! Help me!"

Three vans took off; one gleaming white pickup truck with an official logo that he couldn't quite make out was left. The last of his rapidly-diminishing strength might have left him but for the sight of a water cooler perched on its tailgate. "Hello!" he called, and threw himself into a run. "Don't go! Don't go!"

The last man didn't hear him; he closed the tailgate, climbed behind the wheel, and took off in a cloud of sand and dust. Bruce managed to break into a hard sprint and screamed himself hoarse. "Wait! WAIT!"

When the air cleared, the truck was gone and everyone with it. He stared in disbelief, then turned to see the vast, empty space behind him. Only a moment ago he'd been here and yet not here, with people. And vehicles, and water, and presumably food. Two rapid steps and a wrenching and now he had nothing and no-one.

_You're back home_ he told himself, but how could he know? How many infinite universes might there be? Even if he were in the one that held his Gotham, what distance and effort lay between himself and it? The very thought of it was so exhausting he wanted to lie down and not consider it any further.

After days of effort, weeks of struggle, he made it to the crash site and the tire tracks left by the people who'd gone. He leaned against a piece of fuselage and breathed in slow gasps like a dying fish. He wished for strength and tried to invoke that other, animal self, but those depths within him had long since closed over and nothing came forth to help him. He was merely human, and tired.

The road was close, but deserted, and was hardly worth it, he thought. But he placed his feet very precisely and walked along it, coming and going from himself, the earth tilting and swooping. The moon was up before he realized it was night. Animals howled, crooned, clicked and hissed like a jazz chorus. He felt very agreeable now, tired and pleased to have wild companionship. A coyote crossed his path and looked at him with lambent eyes. It seemed to be giving him a message, if only he could interpret it, but it trotted away. He shivered, yet felt overly warm as if his loose, ragged clothes were made of tight-fitting flannel. He wanted water, cold and clear, and almost wept at the very thought.

The moon ahead of him was dimmer now, and shaped oddly. There was writing on it. He strained to look and was almost under it when it went out without warning. He cried out, grief-stricken.

"Jesus!" said a voice. A light almost blinded him and he stumbled back, feebly waving a hand before his eyes. "Who're you?" asked the voice.

He raised his head and looked at the light's source, a maglite in the hands of a leathery middle-aged man. He opened his mouth to answer but was stumped by the question. "I-"

A little while later he was lying on a couch in a dimly-lit office. A curling, yellowed tool-company calendar stirred in the breeze from an oscillating fan. His back pushed into cracked naugahyde that smelled of tobacco and oil and kerosene. A desk heaped with greasy spark plugs loomed to his right. A man sat behind it, talking eagerly on the phone.

"...dragged him in here, I'd say none the worse for wear but he's already beat all to hell. You gotta get an ambulance, he's weak as a kitten and God knows how he got out there."

A voice came over the other end, indistinct but sharply-worded. "That don't make a damn bit of sense. The crash was what, two weeks ago? Like to shit myself when it happened, but it was good for business; ain't moved that much pop and cancer sticks since the late '80s. But he can't be from that, you dumbass, it's been too long, he'dve died. Must have crashed his car."

A longer pause. "Gordie, goddammit, you better be patching through an ambulance call while you run your fool mouth. Ain't no way he's from that crash, I got the damn newspaper here with the list of dead people and it's even got pictures..." A rattle of pages and then "Jesus Jumping Christ! Gordie, it's that rich fella. The Wayne guy. He's bruised up like a sailor's wife but damn if it ain't him. Tell that ambulance to get a move on. Fucker's not doin' too good. No, I don't care if he's rich, but you know people're gonna show up for days. I got a business to run here. Fine, you can have a free pack of Winstons, just hustle, OK?"

A click, and then a rueful, not unkind voice, "Looks like we're each other's good luck charms, huh, buddy? You get saved and I get famous for a while. Running a filling station ain't what it used to be. Damn Democrats started that hybrid-car conspiracy, nobody stops in for shit anymore. This country ain't fit for an honest man to make a living."

Bruce said something, he himself didn't know what; he thought it might be a question. The man at the desk nodded as if this made perfect sense. "Was closing up when you got here. Good thing you wasn't five minutes later about it, either. Hate to find you cold as a stone next to the pumps tomorrow morning. Shitty for business." He laughed. "Shittier for you, I guess. Here," and he bent over Bruce and there was, oh God, cold water from a plastic bottle spilling between his lips. He cried with no shame and drank until the man took it away. "There. Better not get too much in you or you'll get sicker. Ambulance is on the way. I'd say it's gonna be expensive, but I don't guess that's a problem for you. But the water's free," he added soberly. "Mitchell Kowalski runs a tight ship around here, but he don't charge a sick man for water, rich or not."

Bruce smiled gratefully up at him, hearing the distant sirens pulling closer, and managed more words that almost made sense to him. Mitch nodded again and patted his shoulder. "Brother, don't I know it. Damn Democrats are _ruinin'_ this country."

"Actually, last election I voted D-" Bruce replied, and then was asleep.


	23. Chapter 23

**23.**

**Twilight Zone**

There was, of course, a great deal of uproar; the media went into a frenzy the way it did over anyone wealthy enough or notorious enough, and he was both. Bruce's PR team worked round the clock, spinning possibilities of how he'd survived with little to go on but speculation. The doctors treated his dehydration and injuries in a private suite of a small Nevada hospital that would get a major cash injection from the Wayne fortune a week after he left.

Alfred clung to his hand and wept almost hysterically for five minutes upon finally seeing Bruce, only to dry his face and demand to know what had happened. "And bloody tell me how a man survives a plane crash in a godforsaken desert for two weeks with no food or water and somehow manages to catch a bloody flu virus!"

The virus made as much sense as anything. That other world was drifting away from him. He didn't want to think of it now, couldn't even focus on it. He asked after his company, about Gotham's underworld and what had happened since his departure. He asked for the date and was relieved to hear he had just enough time to go back home and lay roses down for the anniversary of his parents' deaths. In the retreating haze of illness and shock, everything that had happened might not, he realized, have happened at all. When asked by anyone what he remembered of the crash, he shook his head and turned away.

"Master Bruce," suggested Alfred with a pointed stare, "there's plenty of folks who didn't survive-in fact, outside of you, that's everyone-and their loved ones might like an idea of what went on. So if I was you and I could be bothered, I'd try to give them something to go on, painful though it might be. Bloody help the investigators at least, won't you?"

Bruce carefully talked around the memories that seemed real and hallucinatory at the same time. _What happened was_, he started to say, and then Tony's grinning face would pop into his head, the digital readout of his own flying suit hung before his eyes (he missed it with a sharp pang that surprised him), Pepper's hair in the desert breeze, the sound of California surf pounding below in the darkness while he licked his lips and tasted cheap pizza grease and expensive beer; _we were fine until we hit Nevada..._ By then he'd read the newspapers, knew what was in the black box, more or less, and wove his final memories of the plane flight (carefully edited, no weird lights or slow-motion) in with an abundance of whiskey and a nap. He woke up surrounded by wreckage, flung some distance.

He sold the story and acted as bewildered as everyone else. He expressed careful, heartfelt sympathy for the families of those lost and his own humbled feelings at survival. This he did not have to fake. When he grew too weak to answer the same set of questions again, Alfred shooed everyone away, press and government officials alike.

He took a long time to recover and was still weak, but finally he was able to take a private jet to Gotham again. Alfred noticed how Bruce looked out the window tensely the whole way, but set his own mouth in a straight stoic line and said nothing.

Bruce thanked Alfred with tears near the surface, again and again, which Alfred responded to quietly, deferentially. He acted like a man who was hurt, but would not speak of it. They both felt like stilted actors in an implausible play, behaving entirely unlike themselves. It was not at all the way Bruce imagined things going, so far as he had bothered, once he got back. Home didn't feel like home yet. He was desperate for something to click into place. He seldom let his mind stray back to what had really happened to him, and began questioning it. Perhaps it was all booze and a concussion followed by a virus, except he didn't have a concussion. The discretion of a very sought-after shrink could have been bought, but he didn't care for the thought.

In the meantime there was a small-time drug lord desperate to see himself made invincible; a car theft ring; an art thief who stole only forgeries (he actually liked that one); and the usual muggings and assaults. Most of them were a night's work, after he donned the cape again. His real vocation kept him busy, which gave him purpose if not happiness.

The peculiarity and tension between Bruce and Alfred stretched on for a month when Bruce relapsed. Some dormant tendril of illness had laid waiting in his blood; he came home one early morning with a dizzy sensation and Alfred had to help him out of the suit and upstairs to his bed. The doctor summoned to his side prescribed an IV of various fluids for twenty-four hours and confined bed rest for several days. Bruce lay there with a glazed look, even after the doctor left.

Alfred stared at Bruce, eyes growing redder, face puffing up, until finally he exploded.

"Is that it, then? Lying there like a dead fish? Why don't you bloody get up and tear your needles out? Run all over Gotham in that ridiculous getup sick out of your mind, trying to be a bloody hero? What's the matter, finally given up and listened to me for once? _What the hell's wrong with you?_"

Bruce looked at him a moment, then looked away. He closed his eyes.

Alfred muttered invectives to himself and would have stormed out, but there was a knock at the door. "Come in," he and Bruce answered in unison, without acknowledging it or smiling at one another.

"Pardon," said Lucius Fox, smiling his way into the room, "I heard the patient had a relapse. I thought I'd let myself in and see if I could do anything." He kept smiling, but it took a critical edge as he looked down at Bruce. "This isn't the result of any shenanigans involving poison, is it? I figured you'd already learned your lesson on that score."

Bruce shook his head, weakly. "No. Nothing like that."

"His bloody virus came back," said Alfred, tense but in a more conversational tone than he'd used with Bruce. "He pushes himself too damn much. And for once he's listening to me and resting." He made it sound like a personal offense.

"You're pretty...active, again," said Lucius. "And so soon after that crash."

"I wasn't in that crash," he said. The words hung in the air. He was treading dangerous ground, going someplace he couldn't come back from.

Both of his listeners looked at one another for an astonished second, then carefully back at him.

"I wasn't," he said, and the barrier of his memories shifted, and he began to truly speak.


	24. Chapter 24

**24.**

**The Talking Cure**

The sun's light, filtered through heavy curtains, made its orbit of the room; slants of brilliance worked their way around from east to west as the three of them were held by the story pouring out of Bruce. Once he stopped to hobble into his bathroom and another time when Alfred dashed hastily downstairs to bring them all a makeshift lunch. Eventually Alfred and Lucius sat at the foot of Bruce's bed, occasionally interjecting with brief questions for clarity. Other than that, they listened.

Bruce started with the sickly green light, the woman in red, the way time slowed down. He told about the airport, the plane's logo changing, the slow terror of not seeing Gotham or Metropolis in the flight schedules. He told about Tony and knocking himself unconscious, waking up, fighting Nick Fury, and Pepper's interjection with Tony's repulsor. He told of Doctor Strange, the suit he repurposed, the confrontation in Dhamiq, Tony's injury, the hnt for criminals, the hunt for Morlun, the vampire's defeat.

He could not quite bring himself to tell the full story of certain things: the night on Tony's roof, the brief, lovely interlude with Pepper, and how he, or another version of himself, destroyed the vampire. The first two memories were too personal to share, even among friends, and the latter too uncanny for mere words to encompass.

But the telling eased something in him, and brought his time in Tony's Los Angeles back into sharp focus. If it was only a dream or a hallucination then it was a worthy one that deserved his respect and attention. He found himself unable to care very much if the men listening believed in it, as long as they understood its importance.

As time passed, the tension on Alfred's face shifted from anger to concern. Lucius, meanwhile, paid close attention like a mathematician having a complex theorem explained to him in detail.

Finally, in late afternoon. Bruce stopped. He'd finished with being roughed up by Fury's men, the final goodbye and his passage through the portal, and the agonizing walk that led him to Kowalski's gas station. There was a long silence when he finished.

Eventually Alfred and Lucius looked at one another, asking questions without speaking. Alfred turned his head toward Bruce once, started to say something, and then turned silently back to Lucius. They continued to gaze at one another when presently Alfred spoke up.

"Well, what do you make of that?" he asked Lucius.

Lucius sucked his teeth for a moment and withdrew further into himself before replying. "Quite remarkable."

"You don't believe a word of it of course," said Alfred, sounding more doubtful of his own words than anything Bruce had said.

"Well," said Lucius. "I know he believes it. If we want to go off on a scientific tangent, there's a very good theory regarding the possibility of alternate universes."

Alfred's incredulity put him back on familiar ground. "You're telling me you believe he got sucked into an alternate universe where some alcoholic lunatic flies around like a jet airplane and nearly gets eaten by a vampire?"

Lucius merely inclined his head eloquently and silently in Bruce's direction. _Well, in _this_ one, there's a lunatic who dresses like a bat and tried to kill a psychopathic clown._ Alfred went quiet again.

After another long pause, Bruce said the one thing still stuck in his throat, which he'd said before but not from the part of him that told the true story of his absence. "I missed you."

Alfred's head snapped around. "Well I hope you don't think planning your funeral, after raising you like you was my own son, with no body on top of everything else, was quite what I had in mind when I packed you on that bloody plane. I'll let you take Greyhound before I send you in the air again."

The same guilt that struck him at Tony's now washed over him again, and that, more than anything, convinced him that what he remembered really happened. He felt like a truant boy who'd run away from home and frightened his family carelessly, even though nothing that happened had done so by his will. He slid to the edge of the bed and tottered to his feet before Alfred could get up, dragging his IV stand behind him. His butler met him halfway around the enormous bed, and Bruce surprised him by putting his arms around Alfred and hugging him as he hadn't since childhood.

"I'm sorry," he said. Alfred startled, then accepted the embrace uncomfortably.

"Well," he managed, and added "You know, sir, a lesser man would try to get a raise out of this."

Lucius snorted. Bruce laughed, an easy, happy sensation, and noticed for the first time that his fever had broken.

"I don't entirely know what to make of your story, Mr. Wayne," said Lucius. "But I don't think you're deliberately lying, and I know that in even one universe, extraordinary things can happen. And things that become plausible and commonplace with knowledge seem extraordinary on first encounter." He rubbed his eyes. "I also know that it's a little early for dinner, but I myself could use a bite. Help you in the kitchen, Alfred?"

Alfred helped Bruce back into bed and stood up, brushing his hands off. "I suppose so. Rest up, Master Bruce, I'll bring you a tray a little later." He escorted Lucius out.

Bruce lay for a while, feeling lighter, but still weak. After an hour or so and one or two attempts to read bits of the _Gotham Gazette_ strewn around the covers, Alfred brought him dinner, sat as he ate it, and then took it away.

"I wish I had something to show you," he commented as Alfred started to leave. "Something from the other-something to prove it. Or remember it. Or...I don't know. A souvenir."

"We've got you back, sir, or at least here, if you never left, and that'll do for me. Now, you've been up all day and you're still sick," Alfred said firmly. "You're not going out again whether you like it or not. You need a peaceful night for once. I think all of us do."

"You're right," said Bruce. "At least for tonight." Alfred switched off the lamp and closed the door behind him. Bruce rolled over and into a deep, quiet sleep.


	25. Chapter 25

**25.**

**See You In The Funnypages**

from the _Gotham Gazette_, Sunday Lifestyles section

**LOCAL ARTIST'S 'FOUND' OBJECT FINDS HIM WEALTH  
>Wayne Buys Art Object With Strange Story, Appearance<strong>

When Gotham artist Jared Stannett mounted another local show, he had no idea its centerpiece would net him a cool $4 million, least of all from surprise art patron and Gotham industrialist Bruce Wayne.

His show, _Metalloids: Found And Created_, opened at the DeKroontz Gallery's downtown location on Friday. It consisted of metal sculptures, themselves comprised of industrial parts that Stannett found and mixed with pseudo-industrial objects of his own design and manufacture. Many of the installations perform meaningless, whimsical tasks, in keeping with the playful nature of Stannett's usual efforts.

The sculptures form a spiral from the outside of the room, where the most complex machines are, to the middle, where the untouched _Metalloid I_ lies on a small, plain steel pedestal.

Stannet, 24, though a fixture on the local art scene despite his young age, had not been particularly lauded or successful until now, regarded as perhaps derivative-"Miro in motion", as one critic called him.

That changed Friday night with the appreciative musings of visiting New York art critic Stanislaus Myorevsky, an occasional guest at DeKroontz's functions.

"'Miro in motion' is hardly an insult," said Myorevsky. "The whole installation has a wonderful, childlike energy, mixed with a hard edge. It partakes of a peculiar kind of sadness as well. It's very fresh, and complicated in a good way."

Wayne himself was particularly taken with the central piece, _Metalloid I_, which Stannett called "pure found art-I didn't alter it or do anything with it except present it as is. It was the first thing I found and got me thinking. It really inspired the whole installation."

The object, the origins of which were at first unknown, looks like a large flashlight head with no visible bulb and a jointed arm attached to its back. According to Mr. Wayne, who graciously identified it, it is a broken bulkhead light for a defunct brand of Australian sloop ships made in the 1980's.

Despite its mundane if monied origins, the object's journey to Gotham was mysterious.

"I first found it in Los Angeles Harbor," said Stannett. "I was staying with a friend on his houseboat when his wife's bracelet came unlatched and fell into the water. We were all horsing around anyway, so I dove in and looked for it."

After a brief search, Stannett said, "I found it sitting on top of _Metalloid I_, although I didn't have a name for it at the time.

"I brought them both up and had a look at it."

The piece was in some disrepair and still bore traces of an unpleasantly smelly industrial lubricant. "That's what was odd, given what Mr. Wayne said it was. I never heard of a bulkhead light that needed lubricating. Maybe the stuff got on it after it was lost."

He continued, "The longer I looked at it, the stranger it seemed. It was like the rest of the sculptures, in that it appears to have an everyday purpose but the longer you look, the more you realize it isn't really made in for an apparently practical application. None of the fittings seem to match standard sizes for whatever you could imagine placing it in. It occurred to me that it might be another artist's work, but I don't know of anyone in the art world making anything like this. It's almost otherwordly, but also very prosaic."

Stannett brought the object back to Gotham and began salvaging machine parts in the city's abandoned industrial district for his work. The entire collection took him six weeks of work.

At Friday night's opening, Stannett merely hoped for a good reception. Instead, his entire collection was purchased within thirty minutes by local playboy Bruce Wayne, who appeared taken with the works. After purchasing _Metalloids_, Wayne said he planned to allow the collection to be exhibited at art museums along the East Coast, replacing _Metalloid I_ with a replica. The original will join his newly-established private collection.

"Well, I lost a lot of stock in that boat company," he joked. "At least I've got a little bit of my investment back!"

On a more sober note, he added, "It's really a very moving piece to me. All I can say is, it gives me a sense of nostalgia for something that, by most standards, could never exist."

*FINIS*


End file.
